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THE WILL TO POWER

AN ATTEMPTED TRANSVALUATION OF ALL VALUES


BY

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE


TRANSLATED BY

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI


VOL. I

BOOKS I AND II


The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche

The First Complete and Authorised English Translation

Edited by Dr Oscar Levy

Volume Fourteen

T.N. FOULIS

13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET

EDINBURGH: AND LONDON


1914




CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

    PREFACE 1

    FIRST BOOK. EUROPEAN NIHILISM. A PLAN

    I. NIHILISM--

    1. Nihilism as an Outcome of the Valuations and Interpretations of
           Existence which have prevailed hitherto
    2. Further Causes of Nihilism
    3. The Nihilistic Movement as an Expression of Decadence
    4. The Crisis: Nihilism and the Idea of Recurrence

    II. CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM--

    _(a)_ Modern Gloominess
    _(b)_ The Last Centuries
    _(c)_ Signs of Increasing Strength

    SECOND BOOK. A CRITICISM OF THE HIGHEST VALUES THAT HAVE PREVAILED
    HITHERTO.

    I. CRITICISM OF RELIGION--

    1. Concerning the Origin of Religions
    2. Concerning the History of Christianity
    3. Christian Ideals

    II. A CRITICISM OF MORALITY--

    1. The Origin of Moral Valuations
    2. The Herd
    3. General Observations concerning Morality
    4. How Virtue is made to Dominate
    5. The Moral Ideal--

    _A._ A Criticism of Ideals
    _B._ A Criticism of the "Good Man," of the Saint, etc.
    _C._ Concerning the Slander of the so-called Evil Qualities
    _D._ A Criticism of the Words: Improving, Perfecting, Elevating

    6. Concluding Remarks concerning the Criticism of Morality

    III. CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY--

    1. General Remarks
    2. A Criticism of Greek Philosophy
    3. The Truths and Errors of Philosophers
    4. Concluding Remarks in the Criticism of Philosophy




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


In the volume before us we have the first two books of what was to be
Nietzsche's greatest theoretical and philosophical prose work. The
reception given to _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ had been so unsatisfactory,
and misunderstandings relative to its teaching had become so general,
that, within a year of the publication of the first part of that
famous philosophical poem, Nietzsche was already beginning to see
the necessity of bringing his doctrines before the public in a more
definite and unmistakable form. During the years that followed--that is
to say, between 1883 and 1886--this plan was matured, and although we
have no warrant, save his sister's own word and the internal evidence
at our disposal, for classing _Beyond Good and Evil_ (published 1886)
among the contributions to Nietzsche's grand and final philosophical
scheme, "The Will to Power," it is now impossible to separate it
entirely from his chief work as we would naturally separate _The Birth
of Tragedy,_ the _Thoughts out of Season,_ the volumes entitled _Human,
all-too-Human, The Dawn of Day,_ and _Joyful Wisdom._

_Beyond Good and Evil,_ then, together with its sequel, _The Genealogy
of Morals,_ and the two little volumes, _The Twilight of the Idols_
and the _Antichrist_ (published in 1889 and 1894 respectively), must
be regarded as forming part of the general plan of which _The Will to
Power_ was to be the _opus magnum._

Unfortunately, _The Will to Power_ was never completed by its author.
The text from which this translation was made is a posthumous
publication, and it suffers from all the disadvantages that a book
must suffer from which has been arranged and ordered by foster hands.
When those who were responsible for its publication undertook the task
of preparing it for the press, it was very little more than a vast
collection of notes and rough drafts, set down by Nietzsche from time
to time, as the material for his chief work; and, as any liberty taken
with the original manuscript, save that of putting it in order, would
probably have resulted in adding or excluding what the author would
on no account have added or excluded himself, it follows that in some
few cases the paragraphs are no more than hasty memoranda of passing
thoughts, which Nietzsche must have had the intention of elaborating
at some future time. In these cases the translation follows the German
as closely as possible, and the free use even of a conjunction has in
certain cases been avoided, for fear lest the meaning might be in the
slightest degree modified. It were well, therefore, if the reader could
bear these facts in mind whenever he is struck by a certain clumsiness,
either of expression or disposition, in the course of reading this
translation.

It may be said that, from the day when Nietzsche first recognised the
necessity of making a more unequivocal appeal to his public than
the _Zarathustra_ had been, that is to say, from the spring of 1883,
his work in respect of _The Will to Power_ suffered no interruption
whatsoever, and that it was his chief preoccupation from that period
until his breakdown in 1889.

That this span of six years was none too long for the task he had
undertaken, will be gathered from the fact that, in the great work he
had planned, he actually set out to show that the life-principle, "Will
to Power," was the prime motor of all living organisms.

To do this he appeals both to the animal world and to human society,
with its subdivisions, religion, art, morality, politics, etc. etc.,
and in each of these he seeks to demonstrate the activity of the
principle which he held to be the essential factor of all existence.

Frau Foerster-Nietzsche tells us that the notion that "The Will to
Power" was the fundamental principle of all life, first occurred to her
brother in the year 1870, at the seat of war, while he was serving as
a volunteer in a German army ambulance. On one occasion, at the close
of a very heavy day with the wounded, he happened to enter a small
town which lay on one of the chief military roads. He was wandering
through it in a leisurely fashion when, suddenly, as he turned the
corner of a street that was protected on either side by lofty stone
walls, he heard a roaring noise, as of thunder, which seemed to come
from the immediate neighbourhood. He hurried forward a step or two, and
what should he see, but a magnificent cavalry regiment--gloriously
expressive of the courage and exuberant strength of a people--ride
past him like a luminous stormcloud. The thundering din waxed louder
and louder, and lo and behold! his own beloved regiment of field
artillery dashed forward at full speed, out of the mist of motes, and
sped westward amid an uproar of clattering chains and galloping steeds.
A minute or two elapsed, and then a column of infantry appeared,
advancing at the double--the men's eyes were aflame, their feet struck
the hard road like mighty hammer-strokes, and their accoutrements
glistened through the haze. While this procession passed before him,
on its way to war and perhaps to death,--so wonderful in its vital
strength and formidable courage, and so perfectly symbolic of a race
that _will_ conquer and prevail, or perish in the attempt,--Nietzsche
was struck with the thought that the highest will to live could not
find its expression in a miserable "struggle for existence," but in
a will to war, a Will to Power, a will to overpower! This is said to
be the history of his first conception of that principle which is at
the root of all his philosophy, and twelve years later, in _Thus Spake
Zarathustra,_ we find him expounding it thus:--

"Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even
in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.

"Only where there is life, is there also will: not, however, Will to
Life, but--so teach I thee--Will to Power!

"Much is reckoned higher than life itself by the living one; but out of
the very reckoning speaketh--the Will to Power!"

And three years later still, in _Beyond Good and Evil,_ we read the
following passage:--

"Psychologists 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--life
itself is _Will to Power_; self-preservation is only one of the
indirect and most frequent results thereof."

But in this volume, and the one that is to follow, we shall find
Nietzsche more mature, more sober, and perhaps more profound than
in the works above mentioned. All the loves and hates by which we
know him, we shall come across again in this work; but here he seems
to stand more above them than he had done heretofore; having once
enunciated his ideals vehemently and emphatically, he now discusses
them with a certain grim humour, with more thoroughness and detail, and
he gives even his enemies a quiet and respectful hearing. His tolerant
attitude to Christianity on pages 8-9, 107, 323, for instance, is
a case in point, and his definite description of what we are to
understand by his pity (p. 293) leaves us in no doubt as to the calm
determination of this work. Book One will not seem so well arranged
or so well worked out as Book Two; the former being more sketchy and
more speculative than the latter. Be this as it may, it contains deeply
interesting things, inasmuch as it attempts to trace the elements of
Nihilism--as the outcome of Christian values--in all the institutions
of the present day.

In the Second Book Herbert Spencer comes in for a number of telling
blows, and not the least of these is to be found on page 237, where,
although his name is not mentioned, it is obviously implied. Here
Nietzsche definitely disclaims all ideas of an individualistic
morality, and carefully states that _his_ philosophy aims at _a new
order of rank._

It will seem to some that morality is dealt with somewhat cavalierly
throughout the two books; but, in this respect, it should not be
forgotten that Nietzsche not only made a firm stand in favour of
exceptional men, but that he also believed that any morality is nothing
more than a mere system of valuations which are determined by the
conditions in which a given species lives. Hence his words on page 107:
"Beyond Good and Evil,--certainly; but we insist upon the unconditional
and strict preservation of herd-morality"; and on page 323: "Suppose
the _strong_ were masters in all respects, even in valuing: let us try
and think what their attitude would be towards illness, suffering,
and sacrifice! _Self-contempt on the part of the weak_ would be the
result: they would do their utmost to disappear and to extirpate their
kind. And would this be _desirable_?--should we really like a world
in which the subtlety, the consideration, the intellectuality, the
_plasticity_--in fact, the whole influence of the weak--was lacking?"

It is obvious from this passage that Nietzsche only objected to the
influence of herd-morality outside the herd--that is to say, among
exceptional and higher men who may be wrecked by it. Whereas most other
philosophers before him had been the "Altruist" of the lower strata of
humanity, Nietzsche may aptly be called the Altruist of the exceptions,
of the particular lucky cases among men. For such "varieties," he
thought, the morality of Christianity had done all it could do, and
though he in no way wished to underrate the value it had sometimes
been to them in the past, he saw that at present, in any case, it
might prove a great danger. With Goethe, therefore, he believed that
"Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round
a building during the course of its construction, and which are taken
away as soon as the edifice is completed. To the workman, they are
indispensable; but he must be careful not to confound the scaffolding
with the building."[1]

It is deeply to be deplored that Nietzsche was never able to complete
his life-work. The fragments of it collected in volumes i. and ii. of
_The Will to Power_ are sufficiently remarkable to convey some idea of
what the whole work would have been if only its author had been able to
arrange and complete it according to his original design.

It is to be hoped that we are too sensible nowadays to allow our
sensibilities to be shocked by serious and well-meditated criticism,
even of the most cherished among our institutions, and an honest and
sincere reformer ought no longer to find us prejudiced--to the extent
of deafness--against him, more particularly when he comes forward with
a gospel--"The Will to Power"--which is, above all, a test of our power
to will.

                                                   ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.


[Footnote 1: _Naturwissenschaft im Allgemeinen_ (Weimar Edition, i.
II, p. 132).]




PREFACE.


1.

Concerning great things one should either be silent or one should speak
loftily:--loftily--that is to say, cynically and innocently.


2.

What I am now going to relate is the history of the next two centuries.
I shall describe what will happen, what must necessarily happen:
_the triumph of Nihilism._ This history can be written already; for
necessity itself is at work in bringing it about. This future is
already proclaimed by a hundred different omens; as a destiny it
announces its advent everywhere, for this music of to-morrow all ears
are already pricked. The whole of our culture in Europe has long
been writhing in an agony of suspense which increases from decade
to decade as if in expectation of a catastrophe: restless, violent,
helter-skelter, like a torrent that will _reach its bourne,_ and
refuses to reflect--yea, that even dreads reflection.


3.

On the other hand, the present writer has done little else, hitherto,
than _reflect and meditate,_ like an instinctive philosopher and
anchorite, who found his advantage in isolation--in remaining outside,
in patience, procrastination, and lagging behind; like a weighing and
testing spirit who has already lost his way in every labyrinth of
the future; like a prophetic bird-spirit that _looks backwards_ when
it would announce what is to come; like the first perfect European
Nihilist, who, however, has already outlived Nihilism in his own
soul--who has out-grown, overcome, and dismissed it.


4.

For the reader must not misunderstand the meaning of the title which
has been given to this Evangel of the Future. "_The Will to Power:
An Attempted Transvaluation of all Values_"--with this formula a
_counter-movement_ finds expression, in regard to both a principle and
a mission; a movement which in some remote future will supersede this
perfect Nihilism; but which nevertheless regards it as a _necessary
step,_ both logically and psychologically, towards its own advent,
and which positively cannot come, except _on top of_ and _out of_ it.
For, why is the triumph of Nihilism _inevitable_ now? Because the
very values current amongst us to-day will arrive at their logical
conclusion in Nihilism,--because Nihilism is the only possible outcome
of our greatest values and ideals,--because we must first experience
Nihilism before we can realise what the actual worth of these "values"
was.... Sooner or later we shall be in need of _new values._




FIRST BOOK.

EUROPEAN NIHILISM.


I.


A PLAN.


1. Nihilism is at our door: whence comes this most gruesome of all
guests to us?--To begin with, it is a mistake to point to "social
evils," "physiological degeneration," or even to corruption as a cause
of Nihilism. This is the most straightforward and most sympathetic age
that ever was. Evil, whether spiritual, physical, or intellectual, is,
in itself, quite unable to introduce Nihilism, _i.e.,_ the absolute
repudiation of worth, purpose, desirability. These evils allow of yet
other and quite different explanations. But there is one _very definite
explanation_ of the phenomena: Nihilism harbours in the heart of
Christian morals.


2. The downfall of Christianity,--through its morality (which is
insuperable), which finally turns against the Christian God Himself
(the sense of truth, highly developed through Christianity, ultimately
revolts against the falsehood and fictitiousness of all Christian
interpretations of the world and its history. The recoil-stroke of
"God is Truth" in the fanatical Belief, is: "All is false." Buddhism
of _action_....).


3. Doubt in morality is the decisive factor. The downfall of the
_moral_ interpretation of the universe, which loses its _raison
d'être_ once it has tried to take flight to a Beyond, meets its
end in Nihilism. "Nothing has any purpose" (the inconsistency of
one explanation of the world, to which men have devoted untold
energy,--gives rise to the suspicion that all explanations may perhaps
be false). The Buddhistic feature: a yearning for nonentity (Indian
Buddhism has no fundamentally moral development at the back of it; that
is why Nihilism in its case means only morality not overcome; existence
is regarded as a punishment and conceived as an error; error is thus
held to be punishment--a moral valuation). Philosophical attempts to
overcome the "moral God" (Hegel, _Pantheism_). The vanquishing of
popular ideals: the wizard, the saint, the bard. Antagonism of "true"
and "beautiful" and "good."


4. Against "purposelessness" on the one hand, against moral valuations
on the other: how far has all science and philosophy been cultivated
heretofore under the influence of moral judgments? And have we not got
the additional factor--the enmity of science, into the bargain? Or the
prejudice against science? Criticism of Spinoza. Christian valuations
everywhere present as remnants in socialistic and positivistic systems.
_A criticism of Christian_ morality is altogether lacking.


5. The Nihilistic consequences of present natural science (along
with its attempts to escape into a Beyond). Out of its practice there
finally _arises_ a certain self-annihilation, an antagonistic attitude
towards itself--a sort of anti-scientificality. Since Copernicus man
has been rolling away from the centre towards _x_.


6. The Nihilistic consequences of the political and politico-economical
way of thinking, where all principles at length become tainted with the
atmosphere of the platform: the breath of mediocrity, insignificance,
dishonesty, etc. Nationalism. Anarchy, etc. Punishment. Everywhere
the _deliverer_ is missing, either as a class or as a single man--the
justifier.


7. Nihilistic consequences of history and of the "practical historian,"
_i.e.,_ the romanticist. The attitude of art is quite unoriginal in
modern life. Its gloominess. Goethe's so-called Olympian State.


8. Art and the preparation of Nihilism. Romanticism (the conclusion of
Wagner's _Ring of the Nibelung_).




NIHILISM.


1. NIHILISM AS AN OUTCOME OF THE VALUATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF
EXISTENCE WHICH HAVE PREVAILED HERETOFORE.


2.

What does Nihilism mean?--_That the highest values are losing their
value._ There is no bourne. There is no answer to the question: "to
what purpose?"


3.

Thorough Nihilism is the conviction that life is absurd, in the
light of the highest values already discovered; it also includes the
_view_ that we have not the smallest right to assume the existence of
transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either
divine or morality incarnate.

This view is a result of fully developed "truthfulness": therefore a
consequence of the belief in morality.


4.

What _advantages_ did the Christian hypothesis of morality offer?

(1) It bestowed an intrinsic value upon men, which contrasted with
their apparent insignificance and subordination to chance in the
eternal flux of becoming and perishing.

(2) It served the purpose of God's advocates, inasmuch as it granted
the world a certain _perfection_ despite its sorrow and evil--it also
granted the world that proverbial "freedom": evil seemed full of
_meaning_.

(3) It assumed that man could have a _knowledge_ of absolute values,
and thus granted him _adequate perception_ for the most important
things.

(4) It prevented man from despising himself as man, from turning
against life, and from being driven to despair by knowledge: it was a
self-preservative measure.

In short: Morality was the great _antidote_ against practical and
theoretical Nihilism.


5.

But among the forces reared by morality, there was _truthfulness_:
this in the end turns against morality, exposes the _teleology_ of the
latter, its interestedness, and now the _recognition_ of this lie so
long incorporated, from which we despaired of ever freeing ourselves,
acts just like a stimulus. We perceive certain needs in ourselves,
implanted during the long dynasty of the moral interpretation of life,
which now seem to us to be needs of untruth: on the other hand, those
very needs represent the highest values owing to which we are able to
endure life. We have _ceased_ from attaching any worth to what we
know, and we _dare_ not attach any more worth to that with which we
would fain deceive ourselves--from this antagonism there results a
process of dissolution.


6.

This is the _antinomy_: In so far as we believe in morality, we condemn
existence.


7.

The highest values in the service of which man ought to live, more
particularly when they oppressed and constrained him most--these
_social values, owing to their tone-strengthening_ tendencies,
were built over men's heads as though they were the will of God or
"reality," or the actual world, or even a hope of a world to come.
Now that the lowly origin of these values has become known, the
whole universe seems to have been transvalued and to have lost its
significance--but this is only an intermediate stage.


8.

The consequence of _Nihilism_ (disbelief in all values) as a result
of a moral valuation:--_We have grown to dislike egotism_ (even
though we have realised the impossibility of altruism);--_we have
grown to dislike what is most necessary_ (although we have recognised
the impossibility of a _liberum arbitrium_ and of an "intelligible
freedom"[1]). We perceive that we do not reach the spheres in which we
have set our values--at the same time those other spheres in which we
live have _not_ thereby gained _one iota_ in value. On the contrary, we
are _tired,_ because we have lost the main incentive to live. "All in
vain hitherto!"


9.

"Pessimism as a preparatory state to Nihilism."


10.

A. Pessimism viewed as strength--_in what respect?_ In the energy of
its logic, as anarchy, Nihilism, and analysis.

B. Pessimism regarded as collapse--_in what sense?_ In the sense of
its being a softening influence, a sort of cosmopolitan befingering, a
"tout comprendre," and historical spirit.

_Critical tension_: extremes make their appearance and become dominant.


11.

_The logic of Pessimism leads finally to Nihilism: what is the force at
work?_--The notion that _there are no values,_ and _no purpose_: the
recognition of the part that moral valuations have played in all other
lofty values.

Result: _moral valuations are condemnations, negations; morality is the
abdication of the will to live...._


[Footnote 1: This is a Kantian term. Kant recognised two kinds of
Freedom--the practical and the transcendental kind. The first belongs
to the phenomenal, the second to the intelligible world.--TRANSLATOR'S
NOTE.]


12.


THE COLLAPSE OF COSMOPOLITAN VALUES.


_A._

Nihilism will have to manifest itself as a _psychological condition,
first_ when we have sought in all that has happened a purpose which
is not there: so that the seeker will ultimately lose courage.
Nihilism is therefore the coming into consciousness of the long
_waste_ of strength, the pain of "futility," uncertainty, the lack
of an opportunity to recover in some way, or to attain to a state of
peace concerning anything--shame in one's own presence, as if one
had _cheated_ oneself too long.... The purpose above-mentioned might
have been achieved: in the form of a "realisation" of a most high
canon of morality in all worldly phenomena, the moral order of the
universe; or in the form of the increase of love and harmony in the
traffic of humanity; or in the nearer approach to a general condition
of happiness; or even in the march towards general nonentity--any sort
of goal always constitutes a purpose. The common factor to all these
appearances is that something will be _attained,_ through the process
itself: and now we perceive that Becoming has been aiming at _nothing,_
and has achieved nothing. Hence the disillusionment in regard to a
so-called _purpose in existence,_ as a cause of Nihilism; whether this
be in respect of a very definite purpose, or generalised into the
recognition that all the hypotheses are false which have hitherto been
offered as to the object of life, and which relate to the whole of
"Evolution" (man _no longer_ an assistant in, let alone the culmination
of, the evolutionary process).

Nihilism will manifest itself as a psychological condition, in the
second place, when man has fixed a totality, a systematisation, even an
organisation in and behind all phenomena, so that the soul thirsting
for respect and admiration will wallow in the general idea of a highest
ruling and administrative power (if it be the soul of a logician,
the sequence of consequences and perfect reasoning will suffice to
conciliate everything). A kind of unity, some form of "monism":'
and as a result of this belief man becomes obsessed by a feeling of
profound relativity and dependence in the presence of an All which
is infinitely superior to him, a sort of divinity. "The general good
exacts the surrender of the individual ..." but lo, there is no such
general good! At bottom, man loses the belief in his own worth when no
infinitely precious entity manifests itself through him--that is to
say, he conceived such an All, _in order to be able to believe in his
own worth._

Nihilism, as a psychological condition, has yet a third and last form.
Admitting these two _points of view_: that no purpose can be assigned
to Becoming, and that no great entity rules behind all Becoming, in
which the individual may completely lose himself as in an element of
superior value; there still remains the _subterfuge_ which would
consist in condemning this whole world of Becoming as an illusion,
and in discovering a world which would lie beyond it, and would be a
_real_ world. The moment, however, that man perceives that this world
has been devised only for the purpose of meeting certain psychological
needs, and that he has no right whatsoever to it, the final form of
Nihilism comes into being, which comprises _a denial of a metaphysical
world,_ and which forbids itself all belief in a _real_ world. From
this standpoint, the reality of Becoming is the only reality that
is admitted: all bypaths to back-worlds and false godheads are
abandoned--but _this world is no longer endured, although no one wishes
to disown it._

What has actually happened? The feeling of worthlessness was realised
when it was understood that neither the notion of "_Purpose_" nor
that of "_Unity_" nor that of "_Truth_" could be made to interpret
the general character of existence. Nothing is achieved or obtained
thereby; the unity which intervenes in the multiplicity of events is
entirely lacking: the character of existence is not "true," it is
_false_; there is certainly no longer any reason to believe in a _real_
world. In short, the categories, "Purpose," "Unity," "Being," by means
of which we had lent some worth to life, we have once more divorced
from it--and the world now appears _worthless_ to us....

_B._

Admitting that we have recognised the impossibility of _interpreting_
world by means of these three categories, and that from this
standpoint the world begins to be worthless to us; we must ask
ourselves whence we derived our belief in these three categories.
Let us see if it is possible to refuse to believe in them. If we can
_deprive them of their value,_ the proof that they cannot be applied to
the world, is no longer a sufficient reason for _depriving that world
of its value_.

Result: _The belief_ in the categories of reason[2] is the cause
of Nihilism--we have measured the worth of the world according to
categories _which can only be applied to a purely fictitious world._

Conclusion: All values with which we have tried, hitherto, to lend
the world some worth, from our point of view, and with which we have
therefore _deprived it of all worth_ (once these values have been
shown to be inapplicable)--all these values, are, psychologically,
the results of certain views of utility, established for the purpose
of maintaining and increasing the dominion of certain communities:
but falsely projected into the nature of things. It is always man's
_exaggerated ingenuousness_ to regard himself as the sense and measure
of all things.


[Footnote 2: This probably refers to Kant's celebrated table of
twelve categories. The four classes, quantity, quality, relation, and
modality, are each provided with three categories.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.]


13.

Nihilism represents an intermediary pathological condition (the vast
generalisation, the conclusion that there _is no purpose_ in anything,
is pathological): whether it be that the productive forces are not
yet strong enough--or that _decadence_ still hesitates and has not yet
discovered its expedients.

_The conditions of this hypothesis_:--That there is _no truth_; that
there is no absolute state of affairs--no "thing-in-itself." _This
alone is Nihilism, and of the most extreme kind._ It finds that the
value of things consists precisely in the fact that these values are
_not_ real and never have been real, but that they are only a symptom
of strength on the part of the _valuer,_ a simplification serving the
_purposes of existence._


14.

_Values and their modification_ are related to the _growth of power of
the valuer._

The measure of _disbelief_ and of the "freedom of spirit" which is
tolerated, viewed as an _expression of the growth of power._

"Nihilism" viewed as the ideal of the _highest spiritual power,_ of the
over-rich life, partly destructive, partly ironical.


15.

What is _belief_? How is a belief born? All belief assumes that
_something is true._

The extremest form of Nihilism would mean that _all_ belief--all
assumption of truth--is false: because no real world is at hand.
It were therefore: only an _appearance seen in perspective,_ whose
origin must be found in us (seeing that we are constantly in need of a
narrower, a shortened, and simplified world).

This should be realised, that the extent to which we can, in our heart
of hearts, acknowledge appearance, and the necessity of falsehood,
without going to rack and ruin, is the _measure of strength._

In this respect, Nihilism, in that it is the _negation_ of a real world
and of Being, might be _a divine view of the world._


16.

If we are disillusioned, we have not become so in regard to life,
but owing to the fact that our eyes have been opened to all kinds
of "desiderata." With mocking anger we survey that which is called
"_Ideal_": we despise ourselves only because we are unable at every
moment of our lives to quell that absurd emotion which is called
"Idealism." This _pampering_ by means of ideals is stronger than the
anger of the _disillusioned one._


17.

_To what extent does Schopenhauerian Nihilism continue to be the result
of the same ideal as that which gave rise to Christian Theism?_ The
amount of certainty concerning the most exalted desiderata, the highest
values and the greatest degree of perfection, was so great, that the
philosophers started out from it as if it had been an _a priori_ and
_absolute fact_: "God" at the head, as the _given quantity_--Truth. "To
become like God," "to be absorbed into the Divine Being"--these were
for centuries the most ingenuous and most convincing desiderata (but
that which convinces is not necessarily true on that account: it is
_nothing more nor less than convincing._ An observation for donkeys).

The granting of a _personal-reality_ to this accretion of ideals
has been unlearned: people have become atheistic. But has the ideal
actually been abandoned? The latest metaphysicians, as a matter of
fact, still seek their true "reality" in it--the "thing-in-itself"
beside which everything else is merely appearance. Their dogma is, that
because our world of appearance is so obviously _not_ the expression
of that ideal, it therefore cannot be "true"--and at bottom does not
even lead back to that metaphysical world as cause. The unconditioned,
in so far as it stands for that highest degree of perfection, cannot
possibly be the reason of all the conditioned. Schopenhauer, who
desired it otherwise, was obliged to imagine this metaphysical basis as
the antithesis to the ideal, as "an evil, blind will": thus it could
be "that which appears," that which manifests itself in the world of
appearance. But even so, he did not give up that ideal absolute--he
circumvented it....

(Kant seems to have needed the hypothesis of "intelligible freedom,"[3]
in order to relieve the _ens perfectum_ of the responsibility of having
contrived this world as it is, in short, in order to explain evil:
scandalous logic for a philosopher!).


[Footnote 3: See Note on p. 11.]


18.

_The most general sign of modern times_: in his own estimation, man has
lost an infinite amount of _dignity._ For a long time he was the centre
and tragic hero of life in general; then he endeavoured to demonstrate
at least his relationship to the most essential and in itself most
valuable side of life--as all metaphysicians do, who wish to hold fast
to the _dignity of man,_ in their belief that moral values are cardinal
values. He who has let God go, clings all the more strongly to the
belief in morality.


19.

Every purely _moral_ valuation (as, for instance, the Buddhistic)
_terminates in Nihilism_: Europe must expect the same thing! It is
supposed that one can get along with a morality bereft of a religious
background; but in this direction the road to Nihilism is opened. There
is nothing in religion which compels us to regard ourselves as valuing
creatures.


20.

The question which Nihilism puts, namely, "to what purpose?" is the
outcome of a habit, hitherto, to regard the purpose as something fixed,
given and exacted _from outside_--that is to say, by some supernatural
authority. Once the belief in this has been unlearned, the force of an
old habit leads to the search after _another_ authority, which would
_know how to speak unconditionally,_ and could _point to_ goals and
missions. The authority of the _conscience_ now takes the first place
(the more _morality_ is emancipated from theology, the more imperative
does it become) as a compensation for the _personal authority._ Or
the authority of _reason._ Or the _gregarious instinct_ (the herd).
Or history with its _immanent_ spirit, which has its goal in itself,
and to which one can _abandon oneself._ One would like to _evade_ the
_will,_ as also the _willing_ of a goal and the risk of setting oneself
a goal. One would like to get rid of the responsibility (_Fatalism_
would be accepted). Finally: Happiness and with a dash of humbug, the
_happiness of the greatest number._

It is said:--

(1) A definite goal is quite unnecessary.

(2) Such a goal cannot possibly be foreseen. Precisely now, when _will_
in its _fullest strength_ were _necessary,_ it is in the _weakest_
and most _pusillanimous_ condition. _Absolute mistrust concerning the
organising power_ of the will.


21.

_The perfect Nihilist._--The Nihilist's eye _idealises in an ugly
sense,_ and is inconstant to what it remembers: it allows its
recollections to go astray and to fade, it does not protect them from
that cadaverous coloration with which weakness dyes all that is distant
and past. And what it does not do for itself it fails to do for the
whole of mankind as well--that is to say, it allows it to drop.


22.

Nihilism. It may be _two things_:--

A. Nihilism as a sign of _enhanced spiritual strength_: active Nihilism.

B. Nihilism as a sign of the _collapse_ and _decline_ of spiritual
_strength_: passive Nihilism.


23.

Nihilism, a _normal_ condition.

It may be a sign of _strength_; spiritual vigour may have increased to
such an extent that the _goals_ toward which man has marched _hitherto_
(the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it
(for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the _conditions of
existence,_ a submission to the authority of an order of things which
_conduces_ to the _prosperity,_ the _growth_ and _power_ of a living
creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of _insufficient_ strength, to
fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself.

It reaches its _maximum_ of relative strength, as a powerful
_destructive_ force, in the form of _active Nihilism._

Its opposite would be _weary_ Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its
most renowned form being Buddhism: as _passive_ Nihilism, a sign of
weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, _exhausted,_ so that the
goals and values which have prevailed _hitherto_ are no longer suited
to it and are no longer believed in--so that the synthesis of values
and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) decomposes, and
the different values contend with one another: _Disintegration,_ then
everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies,
steps into the foreground under the cover of various _disguises,_
either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc.


24.

Nihilism is not only a meditating over the "in vain!"--not only the
belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts
one's shoulder to the plough; _one destroys._ This, if you will, is
illogical; but the Nihilist does not believe in the necessity of being
logical.... It is the condition of strong minds and wills; and to these
it is impossible to be satisfied with the negation of judgment: the
_negation by deeds_ proceeds from their nature. Annihilation by the
reasoning faculty seconds annihilation by the hand.


25.

_Concerning the genesis of the Nihilist._ The courage of all one really
_knows_ comes but late in life. It is only quite recently that I have
acknowledged to myself that heretofore I have been a Nihilist from top
to toe. The energy and thoroughness with which I marched forward as a
Nihilist deceived me concerning this fundamental principle. When one is
progressing towards a goal it seems impossible that "aimlessness _per
se_" should be one's fundamental article of faith.


26.

_The Pessimism of strong natures._ The "wherefore" after a terrible
struggle, even after victory. That something may exist which is a
hundred times _more important_ than the question, whether we feel well
or unwell, is the fundamental instinct of all strong natures--and
consequently too, whether the _others_ feel well or unwell. In short,
that we have a purpose, for which we would not even hesitate to
_sacrifice men,_ run all risks, and bend our backs to the worst: _this
is the great passion_.



2. FURTHER CAUSES OF NIHILISM.


27.

_The causes of Nihilism_: (1) _The higher species is lacking, i.e.,_
the species whose inexhaustible fruitfulness and power would uphold our
belief in Man (think only of what is owed to Napoleon--almost all the
higher hopes of this century).

(2) _The inferior species_ ("herd," "ass," "society") is forgetting
modesty, and inflates its needs into _cosmic_ and _metaphysical_
values. In this way all life is _vulgarised_: for inasmuch as the
_mass_ of mankind rules, it tyrannises over the _exceptions,_ so that
these lose their belief in themselves and become _Nihilists._

All attempts to _conceive of a new species_ come to nothing
("romanticism," the artist, the philosopher; against Carlyle's attempt
to lend them the highest moral values).

The result is that higher types are _resisted_.

_The downfall and insecurity of all higher types._ The struggle against
genius ("popular poetry," etc.). Sympathy with the lowly and the
suffering as a _standard_ for the _elevation of the soul_.

The _philosopher is lacking,_ the interpreter of deeds, and not alone
he who poetises them.


28.

_Imperfect_ Nihilism--its forms: we are now surrounded by them.

All attempts made to escape Nihilism, which do not consist in
transvaluing the values that have prevailed hitherto, only make the
matter worse; they complicate the problem.


29.

_The varieties of self-stupefaction._ In one's heart of hearts, not to
know, whither? Emptiness. The attempt to rise superior to it all by
means of emotional intoxication: emotional intoxication in the form of
music, in the form of cruelty in the tragic joy over the ruin of the
noblest, and in the form of blind, gushing enthusiasm over individual
_men_ or distinct _periods_ (in the form of hatred, etc.). The attempt
to work blindly, like a scientific instrument; to keep an eye on the
many small joys, like an investigator, for instance (modesty towards
oneself); the mysticism of the voluptuous _joy_ of eternal emptiness;
art "for art's sake" ("le fait"), "immaculate investigation," in the
form of narcotics against the disgust of oneself; any kind of incessant
work, _any_ kind of small foolish fanaticism; the medley of all
means, illness as the result of general profligacy (dissipation kills
pleasure).

(1) As a result, feeble will-power.

(2) Excessive pride and the humiliation of petty weakness felt as a
contrast.


30.

The time is coming when we shall have to pay for having been
_Christians_ for two thousand years: we are losing the equilibrium
which enables us to live--for a long while we shall not know in what
direction we are travelling. We are hurling ourselves headlong into the
_opposite_ valuations, with that degree of energy which could only have
been engendered in man by an _overvaluation_ of himself.

Now, everything is false from the root, words and nothing but words,
confused, feeble, or over-strained.

_(a)_ There is a seeking after a sort of earthly solution of the
problem of life, but in the same sense as that of the _final triumph_
of truth, love, justice (socialism: "equality of persons").

_(b)_ There is also an attempt to hold fast to the _moral ideal_ (with
altruism, self-sacrifice, and the denial of the will, in the front
rank).

_(c)_ There is even an attempt to hold fast to a "Beyond": were it
only as an antilogical _x_; but it is forthwith interpreted in such a
way that a kind of metaphysical solace, after the old style, may be
derived from it.

_(d)_ There is an attempt to read the phenomena of life in such a
way as to arrive _at the divine guidance of old,_ with its powers
of rewarding, punishing, educating, and of generally conducing to a
something _better_ in the order of things.

_(e)_ People once more believe in good and evil; so that the victory of
the good and the annihilation of the evil is regarded as a _duty_ (this
is English, and is typical of that blockhead, John Stuart Mill).

(f) The contempt felt for "naturalness," for the desires and for the
ego: the attempt to regard even the highest intellectuality of art as a
result of an impersonal and disinterested attitude.

(g) The Church is still allowed to meddle in all the essential
occurrences and incidents in the life of the individual, with a view to
consecrating it and giving it a _loftier_ meaning: we still have the
"Christian State" and the "Christian marriage."


31.

There have been more thoughtful and more destructively thoughtful[4]
times than ours: times like those in which Buddha appeared, for
instance, in which the people themselves, after centuries of sectarian
quarrels, had sunk so deeply into the abyss of philosophical dogmas,
as, from time to time, European people have done in regard to the fine
points of religious dogma. "Literature" and the press would be the last
things to seduce one to any high opinion of the spirit of our times:
the millions of Spiritists, and a Christianity with gymnastic exercises
of that ghastly ugliness which is characteristic of all English
inventions, throw more light on the subject.

European _Pessimism_ is still in its infancy--a fact which argues
against it: it has not yet attained to that prodigious and yearning
fixity of sight to which it attained in India once upon a time, and
in which nonentity is reflected; there is still too much of the
"ready-made," and not enough of the "evolved" in its constitution, too
much learned and poetic Pessimism; I mean that a good deal of it has
been discovered, invented, and "created," but not caused.


[Footnote 4: _zerdachtere_.]


32.

Criticism of the Pessimism which has prevailed hitherto. The want of
the eudæmonological standpoint, as a last abbreviation of the question:
what is the _purpose_ of it all? The reduction of gloom.

_Our_ Pessimism: the world has not the value which we believed it to
have,--our faith itself has so increased our instinct for research that
we are _compelled_ to say this to-day. In the first place, it seems of
less value: _at first it is felt_ to be of less value,--only in this
sense are we pessimists,--that is to say, with the will to acknowledge
this transvaluation without reserve, and no longer, as heretofore, to
deceive ourselves and chant the old old story.

It is precisely in this way that we find the pathos which urges us to
seek for _new values._ In short: the world might have far more value
than we thought--we must get behind the _naïveté of our ideals,_ for
it is possible that, in our conscious effort to give it the highest
interpretation, we have not bestowed even a moderately just value upon
it.

What has been _deified_? The valuing instinct inside the _community_
(that which enabled it to survive).

What has been _calumniated_? That which has tended to separate higher
men from their inferiors, the instincts which cleave gulfs and build
barriers.


33.

Causes effecting the _rise of Pessimism_:--

(1) The most powerful instincts and those which promised most for the
future have hitherto been _calumniated,_ so that life has a curse upon
it.

(2) The growing bravery and the more daring mistrust on the part of man
have led him to discover the fact that _these instincts cannot be
cut adrift from life,_ and thus he turns to embrace life.

(3) Only the most _mediocre,_ who are not _conscious_ of this conflict,
prosper; the higher species fail, and as an example of degeneration
tend to dispose all hearts against them--on the other hand, there is
some indignation caused by the mediocre positing themselves as the end
and meaning of all things. No one can any longer reply to the question:
"Why?"

(4) Belittlement, susceptibility to pain, unrest, haste, and confusion
are steadily increasing--the materialisation of all these tendencies,
which is called "civilisation," becomes every day more simple, with
the result that, in the face of the monstrous machine, the individual
_despairs_ and _surrenders._


34.

Modern Pessimism is an expression of the uselessness only of the
_modern_ world, not of the world and existence as such.


35.

The "preponderance of _pain over pleasure"_ or the reverse (Hedonism);
both of these doctrines are already signposts to Nihilism....

For here, in both cases, no other final purpose is sought than the
phenomenon pleasure or pain.

But only a man who no longer dares to posit a will, a purpose, and a
final goal can speak in this way--according to every healthy type of
man, the worth of life is certainly not measured by the standard of
these secondary things. And a _preponderance_ of pain would be possible
and, _in spite of it,_ a mighty will, a _saying of yea_ to life, and a
holding of this preponderance for necessary.

"Life is not worth living"; "Resignation"; "what is the good of
tears?"--this is a feeble and sentimental attitude of mind. "_Un
monstre gai vaut mieux qu'un sentimental ennuyeux._"


36.

The philosophie Nihilist is convinced that all phenomena are without
sense and are in vain, and that there ought to be no such thing as
Being without sense and in vain. But whence comes this "There ought
not to be?"--whence this "sense" and _this standard_? At bottom the
Nihilist supposes that the sight of such a desolate, useless Being is
_unsatisfying_ to the philosopher, and fills him with desolation and
despair. This aspect of the case is opposed to our subtle sensibilities
as a philosopher. It leads to the absurd conclusion that the character
of existence _must perforce afford pleasure to the philosopher_ if it
is to have any right to subsist.

Now it is easy to understand that happiness and unhappiness, within
the phenomena of this world, can only serve the purpose of _means_:
the question yet remaining to be answered is, whether it _will
ever be possible_ for us to perceive the "object" and "purpose" of
life--whether the problem of purposelessness or the reverse is not
quite beyond our ken.


37.

The development of _Nihilism out of Pessimism._ The denaturalisation
of _Values._ Scholasticism of values. The values isolated, idealistic,
instead of ruling and leading action, turn _against_ it and condemn it.

Opposites introduced in the place of natural gradations and ranks.
Hatred of the order of rank. Opposites are compatible with a plebeian
age, because they are more easy to grasp.

The _rejected_ world is opposed to an artificially constructed "true
and valuable" one. At last we discover out of what material the "true"
world was built; all that remains, now, is the rejected world, and to
the account of our reasons for _rejecting it we place our greatest
disillusionment._

At this point _Nihilism_ is reached; the directing values have been
retained--nothing more!

This gives rise to _the problem of strength and weakness_:--

(1) The weak fall to pieces upon it;

(2) The strong destroy what does not fall to pieces of its own accord;

(3) The strongest overcome the directing values.

_The whole condition of affairs produces the tragic age._




3. THE NIHILISTIC MOVEMENT AS AN EXPRESSION OF DECADENCE.


38.

Just lately an accidental and in every way inappropriate term has been
very much misused: everywhere people are speaking of "_Pessimism_,"
and there is a fight around the question (to which some replies must be
forthcoming): which is right--Pessimism or Optimism?

People have not yet seen what is so terribly-obvious--namely, that
Pessimism is not a problem but a _symptom,_--that the term ought to be
replaced by "Nihilism,"--that the question, "to be or not to be," is
itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.

The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological
decadence.


39.

_To be understood_:--That every kind of decline and tendency to
sickness has incessantly been at work in helping to create general
evaluations: that in those valuations which now dominate, decadence
has even begun to preponderate, that we have not only to combat the
conditions which present misery and degeneration have brought into
being; but that all decadence, previous to that of our own times, has
been transmitted and has therefore remained an _active force_ amongst
us. A universal departure of this kind, on the part of man, from
his fundamental instincts, such universal decadence of the valuing
judgment, is the note of interrogation _par excellence,_ the real
riddle, which the animal "man" sets to all philosophers.


40.

_The notion "decadence":--Decay, decline,_ and _waste,_ are, _per se,_
in no way open to objection; they are the natural consequences of life
and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to
life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position which enables
us to _suppress_ it. On the contrary, reason _would have it retain its
rights._

It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that
circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put
an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But
that is tantamount to condemning _Life_ ... a society is not at liberty
to remain young. And even in its prime it must bring forth ordure and
decaying matter. The more energetically and daringly it advances, the
richer will it be in failures and in deformities, and the nearer it
will be to its fall. Age is not deferred by means of institutions. Nor
is illness. Nor is vice.


41.

Fundamental aspect of the nature of decadence: _what has heretofore
been regarded as its causes are its effects._

In this way, the whole perspective _of the problems of morality_ is
altered.

All the struggle of morals against vice, luxury, crime, and even
against illness, seems a _naïveté,_ a superfluous effort: there is no
such thing as "_improvement_" (a word against _repentance_).

Decadence itself is not a thing _that can be withstood_: it is
absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. That
which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the
spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism.

Is that done? The very _reverse_ is done. It is precisely on this
account that one makes a stand on behalf of _humanity._

How do the _highest values_ created hitherto stand in relation to this
fundamental question in _biology_? Philosophy, religion, morality, art,
etc.

(The remedy: militarism, for instance, from Napoleon onwards, who
regarded civilisation as his natural enemy.)


42.

All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the _causes of
degeneration,_ are really its effects.

But those things also which have been regarded as the _remedies_ of
degeneration are only _palliatives_ of certain effects thereof: the
"cured" are _types of the degenerate._

_The results of decadence_: vice--viciousness; illness--sickliness;
crime--criminality; celibacy--sterility; hysteria--the weakness of the
will; alcoholism; pessimism, anarchy; debauchery (also of the spirit).
The calumniators, underminers, sceptics, and destroyers.


43.

Concerning the notion "decadence." (1) Scepticism is a result of
decadence: just as spiritual debauchery is.

(2) Moral corruption is a result of decadence (the weakness of the will
and the need of strong stimulants).

(3) Remedies, whether psychological or moral, do not alter the march
of decadence, they do not arrest anything; physiologically they do not
count.

A peep into the _enormous futility_ of these pretentious "reactions";
they are forms of anæsthetising oneself against certain fatal
symptoms resulting from the prevailing condition of things; they do
not eradicate the morbid element; they are often heroic attempts to
cancel the decadent man, to allow only a minimum of his _deleterious
influence_ to survive.

(4) Nihilism is not a cause, but only the _rationale_ of decadence.

(5) The "good" and the "bad" are no more than two types of decadence:
they come together in all its fundamental phenomena.

(6) The _social problem_ is a result of _decadence._

(7) Illnesses, more particularly those attacking the nerves and the
head, are signs that the _defensive_ strength of strong nature is
lacking; a proof of this is that irritability which causes pleasure and
pain to be regarded as problems of the first order.


44.

_The most common types of decadence_: (1) In the belief that they are
remedies, cures are chosen which only precipitate exhaustion;--this is
the case with Christianity (to point to the most egregious example of
mistaken instinct);--this is also the case with "progress."

(2) The _power of resisting_ stimuli is on the wane--chance rules
supreme: events are inflated and drawn out until they appear monstrous
... a suppression of the "personality," a disintegration of the
will; in this regard we may mention a whole class of morality, the
altruistic, that which is incessantly preaching pity, and whose most
essential feature is the weakness of the personality, so that it _rings
in unison,_ and, like an over-sensitive string, does not cease from
vibrating ... extreme irritability....

(3) Cause and effect are confounded: decadence is not understood as
physiological, and its results are taken to be the causes of the
general indisposition:--this applies to all religious morality.

(4) A state of affairs is desired in which suffering shall cease;
life is actually considered the cause of all ills--_unconscious_ and
insensitive states (sleep and syncope) are held in incomparably higher
esteem than the conscious states; hence a _method_ of life.


45.

Concerning the hygiene of the "weak." All that is done in weakness ends
in failure. Moral: do nothing. The worst of it is, that precisely the
strength required in order to stop action, and to cease from reacting,
is most seriously diseased under the influence of weakness: that one
never reacts more promptly or more blindly than when one should not
react at all.

The strength of a character is shown by the ability to delay and
postpone reaction: a certain ἀδιαφορία is just as proper to it, as
involuntariness in recoiling, suddenness and lack of restraint in
"action," are proper to weakness. The will is weak: and the recipe
for preventing foolish acts would be: to have a strong will and to do
nothing--contradiction. A sort of self-destruction, the instinct of
self-preservation is compromised.... _The weak man injures himself_....
That is the decadent _type_.

As a matter of fact, we meet with a vast amount of thought concerning
the means wherewith _impassibility_ may be induced. To this extent, the
instincts are on the right scent; for to do nothing is more useful than
to do something....

All the practices of private orders, of solitary philosophers, and of
fakirs, are suggested by a correct consideration of the fact, that a
certain kind of man is most _useful to himself_ when he hinders his own
action as much as possible.

_Relieving measures_: absolute obedience, mechanical activity, total
isolation from men and things that might exact immediate decisions and
actions.


46.

_Weakness of Will_: this is a fable that can lead astray. For there
is no will, consequently neither a strong nor a weak one. The
multiplicity and disintegration of the instincts, the want of system in
their relationship, constitute what is known as a "weak will"; their
co-ordination, under the government of one individual among them,
results in a "strong will"--in the first case vacillation and a lack
of equilibrium is noticeable: in the second, precision and definite
direction.


47.

That which is inherited is not illness, but a _predisposition to
illness_: a lack of the powers of resistance against injurious external
influences, etc. etc, broken powers of resistance; expressed morally:
resignation and humility in the presence of the enemy.

I have often wondered whether it would not be possible to class all the
highest values of the philosophies, moralities, and religions which
have been devised hitherto, with the values of the feeble, the _insane_
and the _neurasthenic_ in a milder form, they present the same evils.

The value of all morbid conditions consists in the fact that they
magnify certain normal phenomena which are difficult to discern in
normal conditions....

_Health_ and _illness_ are not essentially different, as the ancient
doctors believed and as a few practitioners still believe to-day. They
cannot be imagined as two distinct principles or entities which fight
for the living organism and make it their battlefield. That is nonsense
and mere idle gossip, which no longer holds water. As a matter of
fact, there is only a difference of degree between these two living
conditions: exaggeration, want of proportion, want of harmony among the
normal phenomena, constitute the morbid state (Claude Bernard).

Just as "evil" may be regarded as exaggeration, discord, and want of
proportion, so can "good" be regarded as a sort of protective diet
against the danger of exaggeration, discord, and want of proportion.

_Hereditary weakness_ as a _dominant_ feeling: the cause of the
prevailing values.

_N.B._--Weakness is in demand--why?... mostly because people cannot be
anything else than weak.

_Weakening considered a duty_: The weakening of the desires, of the
feelings of pleasure and of pain, of the will to power, of the will
to pride, to property and to more property; weakening in the form of
humility; weakening in the form of a belief; weakening in the form
of repugnance and shame in the presence of all that is natural--in
the form of a denial of life, in the form of illness and chronic
feebleness; weakening in the form of a refusal to take revenge, to
offer resistance, to become an enemy, and to show anger.

_Blunders_ in the treatment: there is no attempt at combating weakness
by means of any fortifying system; but by a sort of justification
consisting of moralising; _i.e.,_ by means of _interpretation._

Two totally different conditions are _confused_: for instance, the
_repose of strength,_ which is essentially abstinence from reaction
(the prototype of the gods whom nothing moves), and the _peace of
exhaustion,_ rigidity to the point of anæsthesia. All these philosophic
and ascetic modes of procedure aspire to the second state, but actually
pretend to attain to the first ... for they ascribe to the condition
they have reached the attributes that would be in keeping only with a
divine state.


48.

_The most dangerous misunderstanding._--There is one concept which
apparently allows of no confusion or ambiguity, and that is the concept
_exhaustion._ Exhaustion may be acquired or inherited--in any case it
alters the aspect and _value of things._

Unlike him who involuntarily _gives_ of the superabundance which he
both feels and represents, to the things about him, and who sees them
fuller, mightier, and more pregnant with promises,--who, in fact, _can_
bestow,--the exhausted one belittles and disfigures everything he
sees--he impoverishes its worth: he is detrimental....

No mistake seems possible in this matter: and yet history discloses the
terrible fact, that the exhausted have always been _confounded_ with
those with the most abundant resources, and the latter with the most
detrimental.

The pauper in vitality, the feeble one, impoverishes even life: the
wealthy man, in vital powers, enriches it. The first is the parasite of
the second: the second is a bestower of his abundance. How is confusion
possible?

When he who was exhausted came forth with the bearing of a very
active and energetic man (when degeneration implied a certain excess
of spiritual and nervous discharge), he was _mistaken_ for the wealthy
man. He inspired terror. The cult of the madman is also always the cult
of him who is rich in vitality, and who is a powerful man. The fanatic,
the one possessed, the religious epileptic, all eccentric creatures
have been regarded as the highest types of power: as divine.

This kind of strength which inspires terror seemed to be, above all,
divine: this was the starting-point of authority; here _wisdom_
was interpreted, hearkened to, and sought. Out of this there was
developed, everywhere almost, a _will_ to "deify," _i.e.,_ to a typical
degeneration of spirit, body, and nerves: an attempt to discover the
road to this higher form of being. To make oneself ill or mad, to
provoke the symptoms of serious disorder--was called getting stronger,
becoming more superhuman, more terrible and more wise. People thought
they would thus attain to such wealth of power, that they would be able
to _dispense_ it. Wheresoever there have been prayers, some one has
been sought who had something to give away.

What led astray, here, was the experience of intoxication. This
increases the feeling of power to the highest degree, therefore, to the
mind of the ingenuous, it is _power._ On the highest altar of power
_the most intoxicated man_ must stand, the ecstatic. (There are two
causes of _intoxication_: superabundant life, and a condition of morbid
nutrition of the brain.)


49.

_Acquired,_ not inherited exhaustion: (1) inadequate _nourishment,_
often the result of ignorance concerning diet, as, for instance, in the
case of scholars; (2) erotic precocity: the damnation more especially
of the youth of France--Parisian youths, above all, who are already
dirtied and ruined when they step out of their _lycées_ into the world,
and who cannot break the chains of despicable tendencies; ironical and
scornful towards themselves--galley-slaves despite all their refinement
(moreover, in the majority of cases, already a symptom of racial and
family decadence, as all hypersensitiveness is; and examples of the
infection of environment: to be influenced by one's environment is
also a sign of decadence); (3) alcoholism, not the instinct but the
habit, foolish imitation, the cowardly or vain adaptation to a ruling
fashion. What a blessing a Jew is among Germans! See the obtuseness,
the flaxen head, the blue eye, and the lack of intellect in the face,
the language, and the bearing; the lazy habit of stretching the limbs,
and the need of repose among Germans--a need which is not the result of
overwork, but of the disgusting excitation and over-excitation caused
by alcohol.


50.

_A theory of exhaustion._--Vice, the insane (also artists), the
criminals, the anarchists--these are not the _oppressed_ classes, but
_the outcasts_ of the community of all classes hitherto.

Seeing that all our classes are permeated by these elements, we have
grasped the fact that _modern society_ is not a "society" or a "body,"
but a diseased agglomeration of Chandala,--a society which no longer
has the strength even to _excrete_.

To what extent living together for centuries has very much deepened
_sickliness_:

    modern virtue   }
    modern intellect} as forms of disease.
    modern science  }


51.

_The state of corruption._--The interrelation of all forms of
corruption should be understood, and the Christian form (Pascal as
the type), as also the socialistic and communistic (a result of the
Christian), should not be overlooked (from the standpoint of natural
science, the _highest_ conception of society according to socialists,
is the lowest in the order of rank among societies); the "Beyond"
--corruption: as though outside the real world of Becoming there were a
world of Being.

Here there must be no compromise, but selection, annihilation, and
war--the Christian Nihilistic standard of value must be withdrawn from
all things and attacked beneath every disguise ... for instance, from
modern _sociology, music,_ and _Pessimism_ (all forms of the Christian
ideal of values).

Either one thing _or_ the other is true--that is to say, tending to
elevate the type man....

The priest, the shepherd of souls, should be looked upon as a form
of life which must be suppressed. All education, hitherto, has been
helpless, adrift, without ballast, and afflicted with the contradiction
of values.

Either one thing _or_ the other is true--that is to say, tending to
elevate the type man....

The priest, the shepherd of souls, should be looked upon as a form
of life which must be suppressed. All education, hitherto, has been
helpless, adrift, without ballast, and afflicted with the contradiction
of values.


52.

If Nature have no pity on the degenerate, it is not therefore
immoral: the growth of physiological and moral evils in the human
race, is rather the _result_ of _morbid and unnatural morality._ The
sensitiveness of the majority of men is both morbid and unnatural.

Why is it that mankind is corrupt in a moral and physiological respect?
The body degenerates if one organ is _unsound._ The _right of altruism_
cannot be traced to physiology, neither can the right to help and
to the equality of fate: these are all premiums for degenerates and
failures.

There can be no _solidarity_ in a society containing unfruitful,
unproductive, and destructive members, who, by the bye, are bound to
have offspring even more degenerate than they are themselves.


53.

Decadence exercises a profound and perfectly unconscious influence,
even over the ideals of science: all our sociology is a proof of this
proposition, and it has yet to be reproached with the fact that
it has only the experience of _society in the process of decay,_
and inevitably takes its own decaying instincts as the basis of
sociological judgment.

The _declining_ vitality of modern Europe formulates its social ideals
in its decaying instincts: and these ideals are all so like those of
_old and effete_ races, that they might be mistaken for one another.

The _gregarious instinct,_ then,--now a sovereign power,--is something
totally different from the instinct of an _aristocratic society_: and
the value of the sum depends upon the value of the units constituting
it.... The whole of our sociology knows no other instinct than that
of the herd, _i.e.,_ of a _multitude of mere ciphers_--of which every
cipher has "equal rights," and where it is a virtue to be----naught....

The valuation with which the various forms of society are judged to-day
is absolutely the same with that which assigns a higher place to peace
than to war: but this principle is contrary to the teaching of biology,
and is itself a mere outcome of decadent life. Life is a result of war,
society is a means to war.... Mr. Herbert Spencer was a decadent in
biology, as also in morality (he regarded the triumph of altruism as a
desideratum!!!).


54.

After thousands of years of error and confusion, it is my good fortune
to have rediscovered the road which leads to a Yea and to a Nay.

I teach people to say Nay in the face of all that makes for weakness
and exhaustion.

I teach people to say Yea in the face of all that makes for strength,
that preserves strength, and justifies the feeling of strength.

Up to the present, neither the one nor the other has been taught; but
rather virtue, disinterestedness, pity, and even the negation of life.
All these are values proceeding from exhausted people.

After having pondered over the physiology of exhaustion for some time,
I was led to the question: to what extent the judgments of exhausted
people had percolated into the world of values.

The result at which I arrived was as startling as it could possibly
be--even for one like myself who was already at home in many a strange
world: I found that all prevailing values--that is to say, all those
which had gained ascendancy over humanity, or at least over its tamer
portions, could be traced back to the judgment of exhausted people.

Under the cover of the holiest names, I found the most destructive
tendencies; people had actually given the name "God" to all that
renders weak, teaches weakness, and infects with weakness.... I found
that the "good man" was a form of self-affirmation on the part of
decadence.

That virtue which Schopenhauer still proclaimed as superior to all,
and as the most fundamental of all virtues; even that same pity I
recognised as more dangerous than any vice. Deliberately to thwart
the law of selection among species, and their natural means of purging
their stock of degenerate members--this, up to my time, had been the
greatest of all virtues....

One should do honour to the _fatality_ which says to the feeble:
"perish!"

The opposing of this fatality, the botching of mankind and the allowing
of it to putrefy, was given the name "God" One shall not take the name
of the Lord one's God in vain....

The race is corrupted--not by its vices, but by its ignorance: it is
corrupted because it has not recognised exhaustion as exhaustion:
physiological misunderstandings are the cause of all evil.

Virtue is our greatest misunderstanding.

Problem: how were the exhausted able to make the laws of values? In
other words, how did they who are the last, come to power?... How did
the instincts of the animal man ever get to stand on their heads?...




4. THE CRISIS: NIHILISM AND THE IDEA OF RECURRENCE.


55.

Extreme positions are not relieved by more moderate ones, but by
extreme _opposite_ positions. And thus the belief in the utter
immorality of nature, and in the absence of all purpose and sense, are
psychologically necessary attitudes when the belief in God and in an
essentially moral order of things is no longer tenable.

Nihilism now appears, _not_ because the sorrows of existence are
greater than they were formerly, but because, in a general way, people
have grown suspicious of the "meaning" which might be given to evil and
even to existence. One interpretation has been overthrown: but since it
was held to be _the_ interpretation, it seems as though there were no
meaning in existence at all, as though everything were in vain.

***

It yet remains to be shown that this "in vain!" is the character
of present Nihilism. The mistrust of our former valuations has
increased to such an extent that it has led to the question: "are
not all 'values' merely allurements prolonging the duration of the
comedy, without, however, bringing the unravelling any closer?" The
"long period of time" which has culminated in an "in vain," without
either goal or purpose, is the _most paralysing_ of thoughts, more
particularly when one sees that one is duped without, however, being
able to resist being duped.

***

Let us imagine this thought in its worst form: existence, as it is,
without either a purpose or a goal, but inevitably recurring, without
an end in nonentity: "_Eternal Recurrence._"

This is the extremest form of Nihilism: nothing (purposelessness)
eternal!

European form of Buddhism: the energy of knowledge and of strength
drives us to such a belief. It is the most _scientific_ of all
hypotheses. We deny final purposes. If existence had a final purpose it
would have reached it.

***

It should be understood that what is being aimed at, here, is a
contradiction of Pantheism: for "everything perfect, divine, eternal,"
_also_ leads _to the belief in Eternal Recurrence._ Question: has this
pantheistic and affirmative attitude to all things also been made
possible by morality? At bottom only the moral God has been overcome.
Is there any sense in imagining a God "beyond good and evil"? Would
Pantheism in _this_ sense be possible? Do we withdraw the idea of
purpose from the process, and affirm the process notwithstanding?
This were so if, within that process, something were _attained_ every
moment--and always the same thing. Spinoza won an affirmative position
of this sort, in the sense that every moment, according to him, has
a logical necessity: and he triumphed by means of his fundamentally
logical instinct over a like conformation of the world.

***

But his case is exceptional. If every _fundamental trait of character,_
which lies beneath every act, and which finds expression in every
act, were recognised by the individual as _his_ fundamental trait of
character, this individual would be driven to regard every moment of
his existence in general, triumphantly as good. It would simply be
necessary for that fundamental trait of character to be felt in oneself
as something good, valuable, and pleasurable.

***

Now, in the case of those men and classes of men who were treated
with violence and oppressed by their fellows, _morality_ saved life
from despair and from the leap into nonentity:. for impotence in
relation to mankind and _not_ in relation to Nature is what generates
the most desperate bitterness towards existence. Morality treated the
powerful, the violent, and the "masters" in general, as enemies against
whom the common man must be protected--_that is to say, emboldened,
strengthened._ Morality has therefore always taught the most profound
_hatred_ and _contempt_ of the fundamental trait of character of all
rulers--_i.e., their Will to Power._ To suppress, to deny, and to
decompose this morality, would mean to regard this most thoroughly
detested instinct with the reverse of the old feeling and valuation.
If the sufferer and the oppressed man were _to lose his belief_ in his
right to contemn the Will to Power, his position would be desperate.
This would be so if the trait above-mentioned were essential to life,
in which case it would follow that even that will to morality was only
a cloak to this "Will to Power," as are also even that hatred and
contempt. The oppressed man would then perceive that he stands _on
the same platform_ with the oppressor, and that he has no individual
privilege, nor any _higher rank_ than the latter.

***

On the _contrary_! There is nothing on earth which can have any value,
if it have not a modicum of power--granted, of course, that life itself
is the Will to Power. Morality protected the _botched_ and _bungled_
against Nihilism, in that it gave every one of them infinite worth,
metaphysical worth, and classed them altogether in one order which did
not correspond with that of worldly power and order of rank: it taught
submission, humility, etc. _Admitting that the belief in this morality
be destroyed,_ the botched and the bungled would no longer have any
comfort, and would perish.



This _perishing_ seems like _self-annihilation,_ like an instinctive
selection of that which must be destroyed. The _symptoms_ of this
self-destruction of the botched and the bungled: self-vivisection,
poisoning, intoxication, romanticism, and, above all, the instinctive
constraint to acts whereby the powerful are made into _mortal
enemies_ (training, so to speak, one's own hangmen), _the will to
destruction_ as the will of a still deeper instinct--of the instinct of
self-destruction, of the Will to Nonentity.

***

Nihilism is a sign that the botched and bungled in order to be
destroyed, that, having been deprived of morality, they no longer have
any reason to "resign themselves," that they take up their stand on the
territory of the opposite principle, and _will also exercise power_
themselves, by compelling the powerful to become their hangmen. This
is the European form of Buddhism, that _active negation,_ after all
existence has lost its meaning.

***

It must not be supposed that "poverty" has grown more acute, on the
contrary! "God, morality, resignation" were remedies in the very
deepest stages of misery: _active_ Nihilism made its appearance in
circumstances which were relatively much more favourable. The fact,
alone, that morality is regarded as overcome, presupposes a certain
degree of intellectual culture; while this very culture, for its part,
bears evidence to a certain relative well-being. A certain intellectual
fatigue, brought on by the long struggle concerning philosophical
opinions, and carried to hopeless scepticism _against_ philosophy,
shows moreover that the level of these Nihilists is by no means a
low one. Only think of the conditions in which Buddha appeared! The
teaching of the eternal recurrence would have learned principles to
go upon (just as Buddha's teaching, for instance, had the notion of
causality, etc.).

***

What do we mean to-day by the words "botched and bungled"? In the
first place, they are used _physiologically_ and not politically. The
unhealthiest kind of man all over Europe (in all classes) is the soil
out of which Nihilism grows: this species of man will regard eternal
recurrence as damnation--once he is bitten by the thought, he can no
longer recoil before any action. He would not extirpate passively,
but would cause everything to be extirpated which is meaningless
and without a goal to this extent; although it is only a spasm, or
sort of blind rage in the presence of the fact that everything has
existed again and again for an eternity--even this period of Nihilism
and destruction. The value of such a _crisis_ is that it _purifies,_
that it unites similar elements, and makes them mutually destructive,
that it assigns common duties to men of opposite persuasions, and
brings the weaker and more uncertain among them to the light, thus
taking the first step towards a new _order of rank_ among forces
from the standpoint of health: recognising commanders as commanders,
subordinates as subordinates. Naturally irrespective of all the present
forms of society.

***

What class of men will prove they are strongest in this new order of
things? The most moderate--they who do not _require_ any extreme forms
of belief, they who not only admit of, but actually like, a certain
modicum of chance and nonsense; they who can think of man with a very
moderate view of his value, without becoming weak and small on that
account; the most rich in health, who are able to withstand a maximum
amount of sorrow, and who are therefore not so very much afraid of
sorrow--men who are _certain of their power,_ and who represent with
conscious pride the state of strength to which man has attained.

***

How could such a man think of Eternal Recurrence?


56.

_The Periods of European Nihilism._

_The Period of Obscurity_: all kinds of groping measures devised to
preserve old institutions and not to arrest the progress of new ones.

_The Period of Light_: men see that old and new are fundamental
contraries; that the old values are born of descending life, and that
the new ones are born of ascending life--_that all old ideals_ are
unfriendly to life (born of decadence and determining it, however
much they may be decked out in the Sunday finery of morality). We
_understand_ the old, but are far from being sufficiently strong for
the new.

_The Periods of the Three Great Passions_: contempt, pity, destruction.

_The Periods of Catastrophes_: the rise of a teaching which will sift
mankind ... which drives the weak to some decision and the strong also.




II.


CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF EUROPEAN NIHILISM.


_(a)_ MODERN GLOOMINESS.


57.

My friends, we had a hard time as youths; we even suffered from
youth itself as though it were a serious disease. This is owing to
the age in which we were born--an age of enormous internal decay and
disintegration which, with all its weakness and even with the best of
its strength, is opposed to the spirit of youth. Disintegration--that
is to say, uncertainty--is peculiar to this age: nothing stands on
solid ground or on a sound faith. People live for the morrow, because
the day-after-to-morrow is doubtful. All our road is slippery and
dangerous, while the ice which still bears us has grown unconscionably
thin: we all feel the mild and gruesome breath of the thaw-wind--soon,
where we are walking, no one will any longer _be able_ to stand!


58.

If this is not an age of decay and of diminishing vitality, it is at
least one of indiscriminate and arbitrary experimentalising--and it is
probable that out of an excess of abortive experiments there has grown
this general impression, as of decay: and perhaps decay itself.


59.

_Concerning the history of modern gloominess._

The state-nomads (officials, etc.): "homeless"--.

The break-up of the family.

The "good man" as a symptom of exhaustion.

Justice as Will to Power (Rearing).

Lewdness and neurosis.

Black music: whither has real music gone?

The anarchist.

Contempt of man, loathing.

Most profound distinction: whether hunger or satiety is creative? The
first creates the _Ideals of Romanticism._

Northern unnaturalness.

The need of Alcohol: the "need" of the working classes.

Philosophical Nihilism.


60.

The slow advance and rise of the middle and lower classes (including
the lower kind of spirit and body), which was already well under way
before the French Revolution, and would have made the same progress
forward without the latter,--in short, then, the preponderance of the
herd over all herdsmen and bell-wethers,--brings in its train:--

(1) Gloominess of spirit (the juxtaposition of a stoical and a
frivolous _appearance_ of happiness, peculiar to noble cultures, is on
the decline; much suffering is allowed to be _seen_ and _heard_ which
formerly was borne in concealment);

(2) Moral hypocrisy (a way of _distinguishing_ oneself through
morality, but by means of the values of the herd: pity, solicitude,
moderation; and not by means of those virtues which are recognised and
honoured outside the herd's sphere of power);

(3) A _really_ large amount of sympathy with both pain and joy (a
feeling of pleasure resulting from being herded together, which is
peculiar to all gregarious animals--"public spirit," "patriotism,"
everything, in fact, which is apart from the individual).


61.

Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours to mitigate distress, to
honour it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is
an age of the _poor._ Our "_rich people_"--_they_ are the poorest! The
real _purpose_ of all wealth has been forgotten.


62.

_Criticism of modern man_:--"the good man," but corrupted and misled by
bad institutions (tyrants and priests);--reason elevated to a position
of authority;--history is regarded as the surmounting of errors;--the
future is regarded as progress;--the Christian state ("God of the
armies");--Christian sexual intercourse (as marriage);--the realm of
"justice" (the cult of "mankind");--"freedom."

The _romantic_ attitudes of the modern man;--the noble man
(Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand);--taking the part of the
oppressed and the bungled and the botched: motto for historians and
romancers;--the Stoics of duty;--disinterestedness regarded as art
and as knowledge;--altruism as the most mendacious form of egoism
(utilitarianism), the most sentimental form of egoism.

All this savours of the eighteenth century. But it had other
qualities which were not inherited, namely, a certain _insouciance,_
cheerfulness, elegance, spiritual clearness. The spiritual tempo has
altered; the pleasure which was begotten by spiritual refinement and
clearness has given room to the pleasure of colour, harmony, mass,
reality, etc. etc. Sensuality in spiritual things. In short, it is the
eighteenth century of Rousseau.


63.

Taken all in all, a considerable amount of _humanity_ has been attained
by our men of to-day. That we feel this is in itself a proof of the
fact that we have become so sensitive in regard to small cases of
distress, that we somewhat unjustly overlook what has been achieved.

Here we must make allowances for the fact that a great deal of
decadence is rife, and that, through such eyes, our world _must appear_
bad and wretched. But these eyes have always seen in the same way, in
all ages.

(1) A certain hypersensitiveness, even in morality.

(2) The quantum of bitterness and gloominess, which pessimism bears
with it in its judgments--both together have helped to bring about the
preponderance of the other and _opposite_ point of view, that things
are not well with our morality.

The fact of credit, of the commerce of the world, and the means of
traffic--are expressions of an extraordinarily mild _trustfulness_ in
men.... To that may also be added--

(3) The deliverance of science from moral and religious prejudices: a
very good sign, though for the most part misunderstood.

In my own way, I am attempting a justification of history.


64.

_The second appearance of Buddhism._--Its precursory signs: the
increase of pity. Spiritual exhaustion. The reduction of all
problems to the question of pleasure and pain. The glory of war
which calls forth a counter-stroke. Just as the sharp demarcation of
nations generates a counter-movement in the form of the most hearty
"Fraternity." The fact that it is impossible for religion to carry on
its work any longer with dogma and fables.

The _catastrophe of Nihilism_ will put an end to all this Buddhistic
culture.


65.

That which is most sorely afflicted to-day is the instinct and will of
_tradition_: all institutions which owe their origin to this instinct,
are opposed to the tastes of the age.... At bottom, nothing is thought
or done which is not calculated to tear up this spirit of tradition
by the roots. Tradition is looked upon as a fatality; it is studied
and acknowledged (in the form of "heredity"), but people will not have
anything to do with it. The extension of one will over long periods
of time, the selection of conditions and valuations which make it
possible to dispose of centuries in advance--this, precisely, is what
is most utterly anti-modern. From which it follows, that disorganising
principles give our age its specific character.


66.

"Be simple"--a demand which, when made to us complicated and
incomprehensible triers of the heart and reins, is a simple
absurdity.... Be natural: but even if we are unnatural--what then?


67.

The means employed in former times in order to arrive at _similarly
constituted_ and lasting types, throughout long generations: entailed
property and the respect of parents (the origin of the faith in gods
and heroes as ancestors).

Now, the _subdivision of property_ belongs to the opposite tendency.
The centralisation of an enormous number of, different interests in one
soul: which, _to that end,_ must be very strong and mutable.


68.

Why does everything become _mummery._--The modern man is lacking in
unfailing instinct (instinct being understood here to mean that which
is the outcome of a _long period of activity in the same occupation_ on
the part of one family of men); the incapability of producing anything
perfect, is simply the result of this lack of instinct: one individual
alone cannot make up for the schooling his ancestors should have
transmitted to him.

What a morality or book of law creates: that deep instinct which
renders _automatism_ and perfection possible in life and in work.

But now we have reached the opposite point; yes, we wanted to reach
it--the most extreme consciousness, through introspection on the part
of man and of history: and thus we are practically most distant from
perfection in Being, doing, and willing: our desires--even our will
to knowledge--shows how prodigiously decadent we are. We are striving
after the very reverse of what _strong races_ and _strong natures_ will
have--understanding is an _end_....

That Science is possible in the way in which it is practised to-day,
proves that all elementary instincts, _the instincts which ward off
danger and protect life,_ are no longer active. We no longer save, we
are merely spending the capital of our forefathers, even in the way in
which we _pursue knowledge_.


69.

_Nihilistic trait_.

_(a)_ In the _natural sciences_ ("purposelessness"), causality,
mechanism, "conformity to law," an interval, a remnant.

_(b)_ Likewise in _politics_: the individual lacks the belief in his
own right, innocence; falsehood rules supreme, as also the worship of
the moment.

_(d)_ Likewise in _political economy_: the abolition of slavery: the
lack of a redeeming class, and of _one who justifies_--the rise of
anarchy. "Education"?

_(d)_ Likewise in _history_: fatalism, Darwinism; the last attempts at
reconciling reason and Godliness fail. Sentimentality in regard to the
past: biographies can no longer be endured! (Phenomenalism even here:
character regarded as a mask; there are no facts.)

_(e)_ Likewise in _Art_: romanticism and its _counter-stroke_
(repugnance towards romantic ideals and lies). The latter, morally,
as a sense of greatest truthfulness, but pessimistic. Pure "artists"
(indifference as to the "subject"). (The psychology of the
father-confessor and puritanical psychology--two forms of psychological
romanticism: but also their counter-stroke, the attempt to maintain a
purely artistic attitude towards "men"--but even in this respect no one
dares to make the _opposite_ valuation.)


70.

_Against_ the teaching of the influence of _environment_ and external
causes: the power coming from inside is infinitely _superior_;
much that appears like influence acting from without is merely the
subjection of environment to this inner power.

Precisely the same environment may be used and interpreted in opposite
ways: there are no facts. A genius is _not_ explained by such theories
concerning origins.


71.

"_Modernity_" regarded in the light of nutrition and digestion.

Sensitiveness is infinitely more acute (beneath moral vestments: the
increase of pity), the abundance of different impressions is greater
than ever. The _cosmopolitanism_ of articles of diet, of literature,
newspapers, forms, tastes, and even landscapes. The speed of this
affluence is _prestissimo_; impressions are wiped out, and people
instinctively guard against assimilating anything or against taking
anything _seriously_ and "digesting" it; the result is a weakening of
the powers of digestion. There begin a sort of _adaptation_ to this
accumulation of impressions. Man unlearns the art of _doing,_ and
_all he does is to react_ to stimuli coming from his environment. _He
spends his strength,_ partly in the process of _assimilation,_ partly
in _defending himself,_ and again partly in _responding to stimuli.
Profound enfeeblement of spontaneity_:--the historian, the critic, the
analyst, the interpreter, the observer, the collector, the reader,--all
reactive talents,--_all_ science!

Artificial _modification_ of one's own nature in order to make it
resemble a "mirror"; one is interested, but only epidermally: this
is systematic coolness, equilibrium, a steady _low_ temperature,
just beneath the thin surface on which warmth, movement, "storm," and
undulations play.

Opposition of _external_ mobility to a certain _dead heaviness and
fatigue_.


72.

Where must our modern world be classed--under exhaustion or under
increasing strength? Its multiformity and lack of repose are brought
about by the highest form of _consciousness._


73.

Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our _modern vices._


74.

A contribution to the characterisation of "_Modernity._"--Exaggerated
development of intermediate forms; the decay of types; the break-up of
tradition, schools; the predominance of the instincts (philosophically
prepared: the unconscious has the greater value) after the appearance
of the _enfeeblement of will power_ and of the will to an end _and_ to
the means thereto.


75.

A capable artisan or scholar cuts a good figure if he have his pride
in his art, and looks pleasantly and contentedly upon life. On the
other hand, there is no sight more wretched than that of a cobbler or
a schoolmaster who, with the air of a martyr, gives one to understand
that he was really born for something better. There is nothing better
than what is good! and that is: to have a certain kind of capacity and
to use it. This is _virtù_ in the Italian style of the Renaissance.

Nowadays, when the state has a nonsensically oversized belly, in all
fields and branches of work there are "representatives" over and above
the real workman: for instance, in addition to the scholars, there
are the journalists; in addition to the suffering masses, there is a
crowd of jabbering and bragging ne'er-do-wells who "represent" that
suffering--not to speak of the professional politicians who, though
quite satisfied with their lot, stand up in Parliament and, with
strong lungs, "represent" grievances. Our modern life is extremely
_expensive,_ thanks to the host of middlemen that infest it; whereas
in the city of antiquity, and in many a city of Spain and Italy
to-day, where there is an echo of the ancient spirit, the man himself
comes forward and will have nothing to do with a representative or an
intermediary in the modern style--except perhaps to kick him hence!


76.

The pre-eminence of the _merchant_ and the _middleman,_ even in the
most intellectual spheres: the journalist, the "representative," the
historian (as an intermediary between the past and the present), the
exotic and cosmopolitan, the middleman between natural science and
philosophy, the semi-theologians.


77.

The men I have regarded with the most loathing, heretofore, are the
parasites of intellect: they are to be found everywhere, already, in
our modern Europe, and as a matter of fact their conscience is as light
as it possibly can be. They may be a little turbid, and savour somewhat
of Pessimism, but in the main they are voracious, dirty, dirtying,
stealthy, insinuating, light-fingered gentry, scabby--and as innocent
as all small sinners and microbes are. They live at the expense of
those who have intellect and who distribute it liberally: they know
that it is peculiar to the rich mind to live in a disinterested
fashion, without taking too much petty thought for the morrow, and
to distribute its wealth prodigally. For intellect is a bad domestic
economist, and pays no heed whatever to the fact that everything lives
on it and devours it.



78.

MODERN MUMMERY

The motleyness of modern men and its charm Essentially a mask and a
sign of boredom.

The journalist.

The political man (in the "national swindle").

Mummery in the arts:--

    The lack of honesty in preparing and schooling oneself for
    them (Fromentin);

    The Romanticists (their lack of philosophy and science and
    their excess in literature);

    The novelists (Walter Scott, but also the monsters of the
    _Nibelung,_ with their inordinately nervous music);

    The lyricists.

"Scientifically."

Virtuosos (Jews).

The popular ideals are overcome, but not yet _in the presence of the
people_:

The saint, the sage, the prophet.


79.

_The want of discipline in the modern spirit_ concealed beneath all
kinds of moral finery.--The show-words are: Toleration (for the
"incapacity of saying yes or no"); _la largeur de sympathie_ (= a
third of indifference, a third of curiosity, and a third of morbid
susceptibility); "objectivity" (the lack of personality and of
will, and the inability to "love"); "freedom" in regard to the rule
(Romanticism); "truth" as opposed to falsehood and lying (Naturalism);
the "scientific spirit" (the "human document": or, in plain English,
the serial story which means "addition"--instead of "composition");
"passion" in the place of disorder and intemperance; "depth" in the
place of confusion and the pell-mell of symbols.


80.

_Concerning the criticism of big words._--I am full of mistrust and
malice towards what is called "ideal": this is my _Pessimism,_ that
I have recognised to what extent "sublime sentiments" are a source of
evil--that is to say, a belittling and depreciating of man.

Every time "progress" is expected to result from an ideal,
disappointment invariably follows; the triumph of an ideal has always
been a _retrograde movement_.

Christianity, revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights,
philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words are
only valuable in a struggle, as banners: not as realities, but as
_show-words,_ for something quite different (yea, even quite opposed to
what they mean!).


81.

The kind of man is known who has fallen in love with the sentence
"_tout comprendre à est tout pardonner"_ It is the weak and, above all,
the disillusioned: if there is something to pardon in everything, there
is also something to contemn! It is the philosophy of disappointment,
which here swathes itself so humanly in pity, and gazes out so sweetly.

They are Romanticists, whose faith has gone to pot: now they at least
wish to look on and see how everything vanishes and fades. They call it
_l'art pour l'art,_ "objectivity," etc.


82.

_The main symptoms of Pessimism_:--Dinners at Magny's; Russian
Pessimism (Tolstoy, Dostoiewsky); æsthetic Pessimism, _l'art pour
l'art,_ "description" (the romantic and the anti-romantic Pessimism);
Pessimism in the theory of knowledge (Schopenhauer: phenomenalism);
anarchical Pessimism; the "religion of pity," Buddhistic preparation;
the Pessimism of culture (exoticness, cosmopolitanism); moral
Pessimism, myself.


83.

"_Without the Christian Faith_" said Pascal, "you would yourselves
be like nature and history, _un monstre et un chaos._" We fulfilled
this prophecy: once the weak and optimistic eighteenth century had
_embellished_ and _rationalised_ man.

_Schopenhauer_ and _Pascal._--I none essential point, Schopenhauer is
the first who _takes up Pascal's_ movement again: _un monstre et un
chaos,_ consequently something that must be negatived ... history,
nature, and man himself!

"_Our inability to know the truth_ is the result of our _corruption,_
of our moral _decay_" says Pascal. And Schopenhauer says essentially
the same. "The more profound the corruption of reason is, the
more necessary is the doctrine of salvation"--or, putting it into
Schopenhauerian phraseology, negation.


84.

_Schopenhauer as an epigone_ (state of affairs before the
Revolution):--Pity, sensuality, art, weakness of will, Catholicism
of the most intellectual desires--that is, at bottom, the good old
eighteenth century.

_Schopenhauer's_ fundamental misunderstanding of the _will_ (just
as though passion, instinct, and desire were the essential factors
of will) is typical: the depreciation of the will to the extent of
mistaking it altogether. Likewise the hatred of willing: the attempt at
seeing something superior--yea, even superiority itself, and that which
really matters, in non-willing, in the "subject-being _without_ aim or
intention." Great symptom of _fatigue or of the weakness of will_: for
this, in reality, is what treats the passions as master, and directs
them as to the way and to the measure....


85.

The undignified attempt has been made to regard Wagner and Schopenhauer
as types of the mentally unsound: an infinitely more essential
understanding of the matter would have been gained if the exact
decadent type which each of them represents had been scientifically and
accurately defined.


86.

In my opinion, Henrik Ibsen has become very German. With all his
robust idealism and "Will to Truth," he never dared to ring himself
free from moral-illusionism which says "freedom," and will not admit,
even to itself, what freedom is: the second stage in the metamorphosis
of the "Will to Power" in him who lacks it. In the first stage, one
demands justice at the hands of those who have power. In the second,
one speaks of "freedom," that is to say, one wishes to "shake oneself
free" from those who have power. In the third stage, one speaks of
"equal rights"--that is to say, so long as one is not a predominant
personality one wishes to prevent one's competitors from growing in
power.


87.

The Decline of _Protestantism_: theoretically and historically
understood as a half-measure. Undeniable predominance of Catholicism
to-day: Protestant feeling is so dead that the strongest
_anti-Protestant_ movements (Wagner's _Parsifal,_ for instance) are no
longer regarded as such. The whole of the more elevated intellectuality
in France is _Catholic_ in instinct; Bismarck recognised that there was
no longer any such thing as Protestantism.


88.

Protestantism, that spiritually unclean and tiresome form of decadence,
in which Christianity has known how to survive in the mediocre North,
is something incomplete and complexly valuable for knowledge, in so far
as it was able to bring experiences of different kinds and origins into
the same heads.


89.

What has the German spirit not made out of Christianity! And, to refer
to Protestantism again, how much beer is there not still in Protestant
Christianity! Can a crasser, more indolent, and more lounging form
of Christian belief be imagined, than that of the average German
Protestant?... It is indeed a very humble Christianity. I call it
the Homœopathy of Christianity! I am reminded that, to-day, there
also exists a less humble sort of Protestantism; it is taught by
royal chaplains and anti-Semitic speculators: but nobody has ever
maintained that any "spirit" "hovers" over these waters. It is merely
a less respectable form of Christian faith, not by any means a more
comprehensible one.


90.

_Progress._--Let us be on our guard lest we deceive ourselves! Time
flies forward apace,--we would fain believe that everything flies
forward with it,--that evolution is an advancing development.... That
is the appearance of things which deceives the most circumspect. But
the nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the sixteenth:
and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement
when compared with that of 1788.... Mankind does not advance, it does
not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a
huge experimenting workshop where some things in all ages succeed,
while an incalculable number of things fail; where all order, logic,
co-ordination, and responsibility is lacking. How dare we blink the
fact that the rise of Christianity is a decadent movement?--that the
German Reformation was a recrudescence of Christian barbarism?--that
the Revolution destroyed the instinct for an organisation of society
on a large scale?... Man is not an example of progress as compared with
animals: the tender son of culture is an abortion compared with the
Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman is a more successful type--that is
to say, richer in sustaining power than the European.


_(b)_ THE LAST CENTURIES.


91.

Gloominess and pessimistic influence necessarily follow in the wake of
enlightenment. Towards 1770 a falling-off in cheerfulness was already
noticeable; women, with that very feminine instinct which always
defends virtue, believed that immorality was the cause of it. Galiani
hit the bull's eye: he quotes Voltaire's verse:

    "Un monstre gai vaut mieux
    Qu'un sentimental ennuyeux."

If now I maintain that I am ahead, by a century or two of
enlightenment, of Voltaire and Galiani--who was much more profound, how
deeply must I have sunk into gloominess! This is also true, and betimes
I somewhat reluctantly manifested some caution in regard to the German
and Christian narrowness and inconsistency of Schopenhauerian or, worse
still, Leopardian Pessimism, and sought the most characteristic form
(Asia). But, in order to endure that extreme Pessimism (which here and
there peeps out of my _Birth of Tragedy),_ to live alone "without God
or morality," I was compelled to invent a counter-prop for myself.
Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone
surfers so excruciatingly that he was _compelled_ to invent laughter.
The unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as might have been
expected, the most cheerful.


92.

In regard to German culture, I have always had a feeling as of
_decline._ The fact that I learned to know a declining form of culture
has often made me _unfair_ towards the whole phenomenon of European
culture. The Germans always follow at some distance behind: they always
go to the root of things, for instance:--

Dependance upon foreigners; _Kant_--Rousseau, the sensualists, Hume,
Swedenborg.

_Schopenhauer_--the Indians and Romanticism, Voltaire.

_Wagner_--the French cult of the ugly and of grand opera, _Paris,_ and
the flight into _primitive barbarism_ (the marriage of brother and
sister).

The law of the _laggard_ (the provinces go to Paris, Germany goes to
France).

How is it that precisely _Germans discovered the Greek_ (the more an
instinct is developed, the more it is _tempted_ to run for once into
its opposite).

Music is the last breath of every culture.


93.

_Renaissance and Reformation._--What does the Renaissance prove? That
the reign of the "individual" can be only a short one. The output
is too great; there is not even the possibility of husbanding or of
capitalising forces, and exhaustion sets in step by step. These are
times when everything is _squandered,_ when even the strength itself
with which one collects, capitalises, and heaps riches upon riches,
_is squandered._ Even the opponents of such movements are driven to
preposterous extremes in the dissipation of their strength: and they
too are very soon exhausted, used up, and completely sapped.

In the Reformation we are face to face with a wild and plebeian
counterpart of the Italian Renaissance, generated by similar impulses,
except that the former, in the backward and still vulgar North, had to
assume a religious form--there the concept of a higher life had not yet
been divorced from that of a religious one.

Even the Reformation was a movement for individual liberty; "every one
his own priest" is really no more than a formula for _libertinage._
As a matter of fact, the words "Evangelical freedom" would have
sufficed--and all instincts which had reasons for remaining concealed
broke out like wild hounds, the most brutal needs suddenly acquired the
courage to show themselves, everything seemed justified ... men refused
to specify the kind of freedom they had aimed at, they preferred to
shut their eyes. But the fact that their eyes were closed and that
their lips were moistened with gushing orations, did not prevent their
hands from being ready to snatch at whatever there was to snatch at,
that the belly became the god of the "free gospel," and that all lusts
of revenge and of hatred were indulged with insatiable fury.

This lasted for a while: then exhaustion supervened, just as it
had done in Southern Europe; and again here, it was a low form of
exhaustion, a sort of general _ruere in servitium_.... Then the
_disreputable_ century of Germany dawned.


94.

_Chivalry_--the position won by power: its gradual break-up (and
partial transference to broader and more bourgeois spheres). In the
case of Larochefoucauld we find a knowledge of the actual impulses of a
noble temperament--together with the gloomy Christian estimate of these
impulses.

The _protraction of Christianity_ through the _French Revolution._ The
seducer is Rousseau; he once again liberates woman, who thenceforward
is always represented as ever more interesting--_suffering._ Then come
the slaves and Mrs. Beecher-Stowe. Then the poor and the workmen.
Then the vicious and the sick--all this is drawn into the foreground
(even for the purpose of disposing people in favour of the genius,
it has been customary for five hundred years to press him forward as
the great sufferer!). Then comes the cursing of all voluptuousness
(Baudelaire and Schopenhauer), the most decided conviction that the
lust of power is the greatest vice; absolute certainty that morality
and disinterestedness are identical things; that the "happiness of all"
is a goal worth striving after (_i.e.,_ Christ's Kingdom of Heaven).
We are on the best road to it: the Kingdom of Heaven of the poor in
spirit has begun.--Intermediate stages: the bourgeois (as a result of
the _nouveau riche_) and the workman (as a result of the machine).

Greek and French culture of the time of Louis XIV. compared. A decided
belief in oneself. A leisure-class which makes things hard for itself
and exercises a great deal of self-control. The power of form, the will
to form _oneself._ "Happiness" acknowledged as a purpose. Much strength
and energy _behind_ all formality of manners. Pleasure at the sight of
a life that is _seemingly so easy._ The _Greeks_ seemed like _children_
to the French.


95.

_The Three Centuries._

Their different kinds of _sensitiveness_ may perhaps be best expressed
as follows:--

_Aristocracy_: Descartes, the reign of _reason,_ evidence showing the
sovereignty of the _will_.

_Feminism_: Rousseau, the reign of _feeling,_ evidence showing the
sovereignty of the senses; all lies.

_Animalism_: Schopenhauer, the reign of _passion,_ evidence showing the
sovereignty of animality, more honest, but gloomy.

The seventeenth century is _aristocratic,_ all for order, haughty
towards everything animal, severe in regard to the heart, "austere,"
and even free from sentiment, "non-German," averse to all that is
burlesque and natural, generalising and maintaining an attitude of
sovereignty towards the past for it believes in itself. At bottom it
partakes very much of the beast of prey, and practises asceticism in
order to remain master. It is the century of strength of will, as also
that of strong passion.

The eighteenth century is dominated by _woman,_ it is gushing,
spiritual, and flat; but with intellect at the service of aspirations
and of the heart, it is a libertine in the pleasures of intellect,
undermining all authorities; emotionally intoxicated, cheerful, clear,
humane, and sociable, false to itself and at bottom very rascally....

The nineteenth century is more _animal,_ more subterranean, hateful,
realistic, plebeian, and on that very account "better," "more honest,"
more submissive to "reality" of what kind soever, and _truer_; but
weak of will, sad, obscurely exacting and fatalistic. It has no
feeling of timidity or reverence, either in the presence of "reason"
or the "heart"; thoroughly convinced of the dominion of the desires
(Schopenhauer said "Will," but nothing is more characteristic of his
philosophy than that it entirely lacks all actual _willing_). Even
morality is reduced to an instinct ("Pity").

Auguste Comte is _the continuation of the_ eighteenth _century_ (the
dominion of the heart over the head, sensuality in the theory of
knowledge, altruistic exaltation).

The fact that _science_ has become as sovereign as it is to-day, proves
how the nineteenth century has _emancipated itself_ from the dominion
of _ideals._ A certain absence of "needs" and wishes makes our
scientific curiosity and rigour possible--this is our kind of virtue.

Romanticism is the _counterstroke_ of the eighteenth century; a sort of
accumulated longing for its grand style of exaltation (as a matter of
fact, largely mingled with mummery and self-deception: the desire was
to represent _strong nature_ and _strong passion_).

The nineteenth century instinctively goes in search of _theories_
by means of which it may feel its _fatalistic, submission to the
empire of facts_ justified. Hegel's success against sentimentality
and romantic idealism was already a sign of its fatalistic trend of
thought, in its belief that superior reason belongs to the triumphant
side, and in its justification of the actual "state" (in the place of
"humanity," etc.).--Schopenhauer: we are something foolish, and at the
best self-suppressive. The success of determinism, the genealogical
derivation of _obligations_ which were formerly held to be absolute,
the teaching of environment and adaptation, the reduction of will to
a process of reflex movement, the denial of the will as a "working
cause"; finally--a real process of re-christening: so little will
is observed that the word itself becomes _available_ for another
purpose. Further theories: the teaching of _objectivity,_ "will-less"
contemplation, as the only road to truth, _as also_ to _beauty_ (also
the belief in "genius," in order to have _the right to be submissive_);
mechanism, the determinable rigidity of the mechanical process;
so-called "Naturalism," the elimination of the choosing, directing,
interpreting subject, on principle.

Kant, with his "practical reason," with his _moral fanaticism,_ is
quite eighteenth century style; still completely outside the historical
movement, without any notion whatsoever of the reality of his time, for
instance, revolution; he is not affected by Greek philosophy; he is a
phantasist of the notion of duty, a sensualist with a hidden leaning to
dogmatic pampering.

_The return to Kant_ in our century means a _return to the eighteenth
century,_ people desire to create themselves a right to the _old ideas_
and to the old exaltation--hence a theory of knowledge which "describes
limits," that is to say, which admits _of the option of fixing a Beyond
to the domain of reason._

_Hegel's_ way of thinking is not so very far removed from that of
Goethe: see the latter on the subject of Spinoza, for instance.
The will to deify the All and Life, in order to find both _peace_
and _happiness_ in contemplating them: Hegel looks for reason
everywhere--in the presence of reason man may be _submissive_ and
resigned. In Goethe we find a kind of _fatalism_ which is almost
_joyous_ and _confiding,_ which neither revolts nor weakens, which
strives to make a totality out of itself, in the belief that only in
totality does everything seem good and justified, and find itself
resolved.


96.

The period of _rationalism_--followed by a period of _sentimentality._
To what extent does Schopenhauer come under "sentimentality"? (Hegel
under intellectuality?)


97.

The seventeenth century _suffers_ from _humanity_ as from a _host
of contradictions_ ("_l'amas de contradictions_" that we are); it
endeavours to discover man, to _co-ordinate him,_ to excavate him:
whereas the eighteenth century tries to forget what is known of man's
nature, in order to adapt him to its Utopia. "Superficial, soft,
humane"--gushes over "humanity."

The seventeenth century tries to banish all traces of the individual
in order that the artist's work may resemble life as much as possible.
The eighteenth century strives _to create interest in the author_ by
means of the work. The seventeenth century seeks art in art, a piece of
culture; the eighteenth uses art in its propaganda for political and
social reforms.

"Utopia," the "ideal man," the deification of Nature, the vanity of
making one's own personality the centre of interest, subordination to
the propaganda of _social ideas,_ charlatanism--all this we derive from
the eighteenth century.

The style of the seventeenth century: _propre exact et libre._

The strong individual who is self-sufficient, or who appeals
ardently to God--and that obtrusiveness and indiscretion of modern
authors--these things are _opposites._ "Showing-oneself-off"--what a
contrast to the Scholars of Port-Royal!

Alfieri had a sense for the _grand style._

The hate of the _burlesque_ (that which lacks dignity), _the lack of a
sense of Nature_ belongs to the seventeenth century.


98.

_Against Rousseau.--Alas!_ man is no longer sufficiently evil;
Rousseau's opponents, who say that "man is a beast of prey," are
unfortunately wrong. Not the corruption of man, but the softening and
moralising of him is the curse. In the sphere which Rousseau attacked
most violently, the _relatively_ strongest and most successful type of
man was still to be found (the type which still possessed the great
passions intact: Will to Power, Will to Pleasure, the Will and Ability
to Command). The man of the eighteenth century must be compared with
the man of the Renaissance (also with the man of the seventeenth
century in France) if the matter is to be understood at all: Rousseau
is a symptom of self-contempt and of inflamed vanity--both signs that
the dominating will is lacking: he moralises and seeks the _cause_ of
his own misery after the style of a revengeful man in the _ruling_
classes.


99.

_Voltaire--Rousseau._--A state of nature is terrible; man is a beast of
prey: our civilisation is an extraordinary _triumph_ over this beast of
prey in nature--this was _Voltaires_ conclusion. He was conscious of
the mildness, the refinements, the intellectual joys of the civilised
state; he despised obtuseness, even in the form of virtue, and the lack
of delicacy even in ascetics and monks.

The _moral depravity_ of man seemed to pre-occupy _Rousseau_; the words
"unjust," "cruel," are the best possible for the purpose of exciting
the instincts of the oppressed, who otherwise find themselves under
the ban of the _vetitum_ and of disgrace; _so that their conscience
is opposed to their indulging any insurrectional desires._ These
emancipators seek one thing above all: to give their party the great
accents and attitudes of _higher Nature_.


100.

_Rousseau_; the rule founded on sentiment; Nature as the source of
justice; man perfects himself in proportion as he approaches _Nature_
(according to Voltaire, in proportion _as he leaves Nature behind_).
The very same periods seem to the one to demonstrate the progress of
_humanity_ and, to the other, the increase of injustice and inequality.

Voltaire, who still understood _umanità_ in the sense of the
Renaissance, as also _virtù_ (as "higher culture"), fights for the
cause of the "_honnêtes gens_" "_la bonne compagnie_" taste, science,
arts, and even for the cause of progress and civilisation.

_The flare-up occurred towards 1760_: On the one hand the citizen
of Geneva, on the other _le seigneur de Ferney._ It is only from
that moment and henceforward that Voltaire was the man of his age,
the philosopher, the representative of Toleration and of Disbelief
(theretofore he had been merely _un bel esprit_). His envy and hatred
of Rousseau's success forced him upwards.

"_Pour 'la canaille' un dieu rémunérateur et vengeur_"--Voltaire.

The criticism of both standpoints in regard to the _value of
civilisation._ To Voltaire nothing seems finer than the _social
invention_: there is no higher goal than to uphold and perfect it.
_L'honnêteté_ consists precisely in respecting social usage; virtue
in a certain obedience towards various necessary "prejudices" which
favour the maintenance of society. _Missionary of Culture,_ aristocrat,
representative of the triumphant and ruling classes and their values.
But Rousseau remained a _plebeian,_ even as _hommes de lettres,_ this
was _preposterous_; his shameless contempt for everything that was not
himself.

The _morbid feature_ in Rousseau is the one which happens to have been
most admired and _imitated._ (Lord Byron resembled him somewhat, he
too screwed himself up to sublime attitudes and to revengeful rage--a
sign of vulgarity; later on, when Venice restored his equilibrium,
he understood what _alleviates most_ and does the _most good ...
l'insouciance_.)

In spite of his antecedents, Rousseau is proud of himself; but he is
incensed if he is reminded of his origin....

In Rousseau there was undoubtedly some brain trouble; in Voltaire--rare
health and lightsomeness. _The revengefulness of the sick_; his
periods of insanity as also those of his contempt of man, and of his
mistrust.

Rousseau's defence of _Providence_ (against Voltaire's Pessimism):
he _had need of_ God in order to be able to curse society and
civilisation; everything must be good _per se,_ because God had created
it; man _alone has corrupted man._ The "good man" as a man of Nature
was pure fantasy; but with the dogma of God's authorship he became
something probable and even not devoid of foundation.

_Romanticism_ à la _Rousseau_: passion ("the sovereign right of
passion"); "naturalness"; the fascination of madness (foolishness
reckoned as greatness); the senseless vanity of the weak; the
revengefulness of the masses elevated to the position of _justice_
("in politics, for one hundred years, the leader has always been this
invalid").


101.

_Kant_: makes the scepticism of Englishmen, in regard to the theory of
knowledge, _possible_ for Germans.

(1) By enlisting in its cause the interest of the German's religious
and moral needs: just as the new academicians used scepticism for the
same reasons, as a preparation for Platonism (_vide_ Augustine); just
as Pascal even used _moral_ scepticism in order to provoke (to justify)
the need of belief;

(2) By complicating and entangling it with scholastic flourishes in
view of making it more acceptable to the German's scientific taste in
form (for Locke and Hume, alone, were too illuminating, too clear--that
is to say, judged according to the German valuing instinct, "too
superficial").

_Kant_: a poor psychologist and mediocre judge of human nature, made
hopeless mistakes in regard to great historical values (the French
Revolution); a moral fanatic _à la_ Rousseau; with a subterranean
current of Christian values; a thorough dogmatist, but bored to
extinction by this tendency, to the extent of wishing to tyrannise
over it, but quickly tired, even of 'scepticism; and not yet affected
by any cosmopolitan thought or antique beauty ... a _dawdler_ and a
_go-between,_ not at all original (like _Leibnitz,_ something between
mechanism and spiritualism; like _Goethe,_ something between the taste
of the eighteenth century and that of the "historical sense" [which
_is_ essentially a sense of exoticism]; like _German music,_ between
French and Italian music; like Charles the Great, who mediated and
built bridges between the Roman Empire and Nationalism--a dawdler _par
excellence_).


102.

In what respect have the _Christian_ centuries with their Pessimism
been _stronger_ centuries than the eighteenth--and how do they
correspond with the _tragic_ age of the Greeks?

The nineteenth century _versus_ the eighteenth. How was it an
heir?--how was it a step backwards from the latter? (more lacking in
"spirit" and in taste)--how did it show an advance on the latter?
(more gloomy, more realistic, _stronger_).


103.

How can we _explain_ the fact that we feel something in common with the
_Campagna romana?_ And the high mountain chain?

Chateaubriand in a letter to M. de Fontanes in 1803 writes his first
impression of the _Campagna romana._

The President de Brosses says of the _Campagna romana_: "Il fallait
que Romulus fût ivre quand il songea à bâtir une ville dans un terrain
aussi laid."

Even Delacroix would have nothing to do with Rome, it frightened him.
He loved Venice, just as Shakespeare, Byron, and Georges Sand did.
Théophile Gautier's and Richard Wagner's dislike of Rome must not be
forgotten.

Lamartine has the language for Sorrento and Posilippo.

Victor Hugo raves about Spain, "parce que aucune autre nation n'a
moins emprunté à l'antiquité, parce qu'elle n'a subi aucune influence
classique."


104.

The _two great attempts_ that were made to overcome the eighteenth
century:

_Napoleon,_ in that he called man, the soldier, and the great struggle
for power, to life again, and conceived Europe as a political power.

_Goethe,_ in that he imagined a European culture which would consist
of the whole heritage of what humanity had _attained to_ up to his time.

German culture in this century inspires mistrust--the music of the
period lacks that complete element which liberates and binds as well,
to wit--Goethe.

The pre-eminence of _music_ in the romanticists of 1830 and 1840.
Delacroix. Ingres--a passionate musician (admired Gluck, Haydn,
Beethoven, Mozart), said to his pupils in Rome: "Si je pouvais vous
rendre tous musiciens, vous y gagneriez comme peintres"--likewise
Horace Vernet, who was particularly fond of Don Juan (as Mendelssohn
assures us, 1831); Stendhal, too, who says of himself: "Combien de
lieues ne ferais-je pas à pied, et à combien de jours de prison ne me
soumetterais-je pas pour entendre _Don Juan ou le Matrimonio segreto_;
et je ne sais pour quelle autre chose je ferais cet effort." He was
then fifty-six years old.

The borrowed forms, for instance: Brahms as a typical "Epigone,"
likewise Mendelssohn's cultured Protestantism (a former "soul" is
turned into poetry posthumously ...)

--the moral and poetical substitutions in Wagner, who used _one_ art as
a stop-gap to make up for what another lacked.

--the "historical sense," inspiration derived from poems, sagas.

--that characteristic transformation of which G. Flaubert is the most
striking example among Frenchmen, and Richard Wagner the most striking
example among Germans, shows how the romantic belief in love and the
future changes into a longing for nonentity in 1830-50.


106.

How is it that German music reaches its culminating point in the age of
German romanticism? How is it that German music lacks Goethe? On the
other hand, how much Schiller, or more exactly, how much "Thekla"[5] is
there not in Beethoven!

Schumann has Eichendorff, Uhland, Heine, Hoffman, Tieck, in him.
Richard Wagner has Freischütz, Hoffmann, Grimm, the romantic Saga,
the mystic Catholicism of instinct, symbolism, "the free-spiritedness
of passion" (Rousseau's intention). The _Flying Dutchman_ savours of
France, where _le ténébreux_ (1830) was the type of the seducer.

_The cult of music,_ the revolutionary romanticism of form. Wagner
_synthesises_ German and French romanticism.


[Footnote 5: Thekla is the sentimental heroine in Schiller's
_Wallenstein._--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.]


107.

From the point of view only of his value to Germany and to German
culture, Richard Wagner is still a great problem, perhaps a German
misfortune: in any case, however, a fatality. But what does it
matter? Is he not very much more than a German event? It also
seems to me that to no country on earth is he less related than to
Germany; nothing was prepared there for his advent; his whole type
is simply strange amongst Germans; there he stands in their midst,
wonderful, misunderstood, incomprehensible. But people carefully avoid
acknowledging this: they are too kind, too square-headed--too German
for that. "Credo quia absurdus est": thus did the German spirit wish
it to be, in this case too--hence it is content meanwhile to believe
everything Richard Wagner wanted to have believed about himself. In all
ages the spirit of Germany has been deficient in subtlety and divining
powers concerning psychological matters. Now that it happens to be
under the high pressure of patriotic nonsense and self-adoration, it is
visibly growing thicker and coarser: how could it therefore be equal to
the problem of Wagner!


108.

The Germans _are_ not yet anything, but they are _becoming_ something;
that is why they have not yet any culture;--that is why they cannot
yet have any culture!--They are not yet anything: that means they are
all kinds of things. They are _becoming_ something: that means that
they will one day cease from being all kinds of things. The latter is
at bottom only a wish, scarcely a hope yet. Fortunately it is a wish
with which one can live, a question of will, of work, of discipline, a
question of training, as also of resentment, of longing, of privation,
of discomfort,--yea, even of bitterness,--in short, we Germans _will_
get something out of ourselves, something that has not yet been wanted
of us--we want something _more_!

That this "German, as he is not as yet"--has a right to something
better than the present German "culture"; that all who wish to
become something better, must wax angry when they perceive a sort of
contentment, an impudent "setting-oneself-at-ease," or "a process of
self-censing," in this quarter: that is my second principle, in regard
to which my opinions have not yet changed.



_(c)_ SIGNS OF INCREASING STRENGTH.



109.

First Principle: everything that characterises modern men savours of
decay: but side by side with the prevailing sickness there are signs of
a strength and powerfulness of soul which are still untried. _The same
causes which tend to promote the belittling of men,_ also force _the
stronger and rarer individuals upwards to greatness._


110.

_General survey: the ambiguous_ character of our _modern
world_--precisely the same symptoms might at the same time be
indicative of either _decline_ or _strength._ And the signs of strength
and of emancipation dearly bought, might in view of traditional
(or _hereditary_) appreciations concerned with the feelings, be
_misunderstood_ as indications of weakness. In short, _feeling,_ as a
_means of fixing valuations,_ is not _on a level with the times._

_Generalised_: Every valuation is always _backward_; it is merely the
expression of the conditions which favoured survival and growth in a
much earlier age: it struggles against new conditions of existence
out of which it did not arise, and which it therefore necessarily
misunderstands: it hinders, and excites suspicion against, all that is
new.


111.

_The problem of the nineteenth century._--To discover whether its
strong and weak side belong to each other. Whether they have been cut
from one and the same piece. Whether the variety of its ideals and
their contradictions are conditioned by a higher purpose: whether
they are something higher.--For it might be _the prerequisite of
greatness,_ that growth should take place amid such violent tension.
Dissatisfaction, Nihilism, _might be a good sign._


112.

_General survey._--As a matter of fact, all abundant growth involves a
concomitant process of _crumbling to bits_ and _decay_: suffering and
the symptoms of decline _belong_ to ages of enormous progress; every
fruitful and powerful movement of mankind has always _brought about_
a concurrent Nihilistic movement. Under certain circumstances, the
appearance of _the extremest_ form of Pessimism and actual _Nihilism_
might be the sign of a process of incisive and most essential growth,
and of mankind's transit into completely new conditions of existence.
_This is what I have understood._


113.

_A._

Starting out with a thoroughly courageous _appreciation_ of our men of
to-day:--we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by appearance: this
mankind is much less effective, but it gives quite different pledges
of _lasting strength,_ its tempo is slower, but the rhythm itself is
richer. _Healthiness_ is increasing, the real conditions of a healthy
body are on the point of being known, and will gradually be created,
"asceticism" is regarded with irony. The fear of extremes, a certain
confidence in the "right way," no raving: a periodical self-habituation
to narrower values (such as "mother-land," "science," etc.).

This whole picture, however, would still be _ambiguous_: it might be a
movement either of _increase_ or _decline_ in Life.

_B._

The belief in "progress"--in lower spheres of intelligence, appears as
increasing life: but this is self-deception;

    in higher spheres of intelligence it is a sign of
    _declining_ life.

Description of the symptoms.

The unity of the aspect: uncertainty in regard to the standard of
valuation.

Fear of a general "in vain."

Nihilism.


114.

As a matter of fact, we are no longer so urgently in need of an
antidote against the first Nihilism: Life is no longer so uncertain,
accidental, and senseless in modern Europe. All such tremendous
_exaggeration_ of the value of men, of the value of evil, etc., are
not so necessary now; we can endure a considerable diminution of this
value, we may grant a great deal of nonsense and accident: the _power_
man has acquired now allows of a _lowering_ of the means of discipline,
of which the strongest was the moral interpretation of the universe.
The hypothesis "God" is much too extreme.


115.

If anything shows that our _humanisation_ is a genuine sign of
_progress,_ it is the fact that we no longer require excessive
contraries, that we no longer require contraries at all....

We may love the senses; for we have spiritualised them in every way and
made them artistic;

We have a right to all things which hitherto have been most
_calumniated._


116.

_The reversal of the order of rank._--Those pious counterfeiters--the
priests--are becoming Chandala in our midst:--they occupy the
position of the charlatan, of the quack, of the counterfeiter, of the
sorcerer: we regard them as corrupters of the will, as the great
slanderers and vindictive enemies of Life, and as the _rebels_ among
the bungled and the botched. We have made our middle class out of our
servant-caste--the Sudra--that is to say, our people or the body which
wields the political power.

On the other hand, the Chandala of former times is paramount: the
_blasphemers,_ the _immoralists,_ the independents of all kinds, the
artists, the Jews, the minstrels--and, at bottom, all _disreputable_
classes are in the van.

We have elevated ourselves to _honourable_ thoughts,--even more, we
determine what honour is on earth,--"nobility." ... All of us to-day
are _advocates of life._--We _Immoralists_ are to-day the _strongest_
power: the other great powers are in need of us ... we re-create the
world in our own image.

We have transferred the label "Chandala" to the _priests,_ the
_backworldsmen,_ and to the deformed _Christian society_ which has
become associated with these people, together with creatures of like
origin, the pessimists, Nihilists, romanticists of pity, criminals, and
men of vicious habits--the whole sphere in which the idea of "God" is
that of _Saviour...._

We are proud of being no longer obliged to be liars, slanderers, and
detractors of Life....


117.

_The advance_ of the nineteenth century upon the eighteenth (at bottom
we _good Europeans_ are carrying on a war against the eighteenth
century):

(1) "The return to Nature" is getting to be understood, ever more
definitely, in a way which is quite the reverse of that in which
Rousseau used the phrase--_away from idylls and operas!_

(2) Ever more decided, more anti-idealistic, more objective, more
fearless, more industrious, more temperate, more suspicious of sudden
changes, _anti-revolutionary_;

(3) The question of _bodily health_ is being pressed ever more
decidedly in front of the health of "the soul": the latter is regarded
as a condition brought about by the former, and bodily health is
believed to be, at least, the prerequisite to spiritual health.


118.

If anything at all has been achieved, it is a more innocent attitude
towards the senses, a happier, more favourable demeanour in regard
to sensuality, resembling rather the position taken up by Goethe; a
prouder feeling has also been developed in knowledge, and the "reine
Thor"[6] meets with little faith.


[Footnote 6: This is a reference to Wagner's _Parsifal._ The character
as is well known, is written to represent a son of heart's affliction,
and a child of wisdom--humble, guileless, loving, pure, and a
fool.--TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.]


119.

We "_objective people._"--It is not "pity" that opens up the way for
_us_ to all that is most remote and most strange in life and culture;
but our accessibility and ingenuousness, which precisely does not
"pity," but rather takes pleasure in hundreds of things which formerly
caused pain (which in former days either outraged or moved us, or in
the presence of which we were either hostile or indifferent). Pain in
all its various phases is now interesting to us: on that account we are
certainly _not_ the more pitiful, even though the sight of pain may
shake us to our foundations and move us to tears: and we are absolutely
not inclined to be more helpful in view thereof.

In this _deliberate_ desire to look on at all pain and error, we have
grown stronger and more powerful than in the eighteenth century; it
is a proof of our increase of strength (we have _drawn closer_ to the
seventeenth and sixteenth centuries). But it is a profound mistake
to regard our "romanticism" as a proof of our "beautified souls." We
want _stronger_ sensations than all _coarser_ ages and classes have
wanted. (This fact must not be confounded with the needs of neurotics
and decadents; in their case, of course, there is a craving for pepper
--even for cruelty.)

We are all seeking conditions _which are emancipated from_ the
bourgeois, and to a greater degree from the priestly, notion of
morality (every book which savours at all of priestdom and theology
gives us the impression of pitiful _niaiserie_ and mental indigence).
"Good company," in fact, finds everything insipid which is not
forbidden and considered compromising in bourgeois circles; and the
case is the same with books, music, politics, and opinions on women.


120.

_The simplification of man in the nineteenth century_ (The eighteenth
century was that of elegance, subtlety, and generous feeling).--Not
"return to nature"; for no natural humanity has ever existed yet.
Scholastic, unnatural, and antinatural values are the rule and the
beginning; man only reaches Nature after a long struggle--he never
turns his "back" to her.... To be natural means, to dare to be as
immoral as Nature is.

We are coarser, more direct, richer in irony towards generous feelings,
even when we are beneath them.

Our _haute volée,_ the society consisting of our rich and leisured
men, is more natural: people hunt each other, the love of the sexes
is a kind of sport in which marriage is both a charm and an obstacle;
people entertain each other and live for the sake of pleasure; bodily
advantages stand in the first rank, and curiosity and daring are the
rule.

Our attitude towards _knowledge_ is more natural; we are innocent
in our absolute spiritual debauchery, we hate pathetic and hieratic
manners, we delight in that which is most strictly prohibited, we
should scarcely recognise any interest in knowledge if we were bored in
acquiring it.

Our attitude to _morality_ is also more natural. Principles have become
a laughing-stock; no one dares to speak of his "duty," unless in irony.
But a helpful, benevolent disposition is highly valued. (Morality is
located in _instinct_ and the rest is despised. Besides this there are
few points of honour.)

Our attitude to _politics_ is more natural: we see problems of power,
of the quantum of power, against another quantum. We do not believe in
a right that does not proceed from a power which is able to uphold it.
We regard all rights as conquests.

Our valuation of _great men and things_ is more natural: we regard
passion as a privilege; we can conceive of nothing great which does not
involve a great crime; all greatness is associated in our minds with a
certain standing-beyond-the-pale in morality.

Our attitude to _Nature_ is more natural: we no longer love her for her
"innocence," her "reason," her "beauty," we have made her beautifully
devilish and "foolish." But instead of despising her on that account,
since then we have felt more closely related to her and more familiar
in her presence. She does _not_ aspire to virtue: we therefore respect
her.

Our attitude towards _Art_ is more natural: we do not exact beautiful,
empty lies, etc., from her; brutal positivism reigns supreme, and it
ascertains things with perfect calm.

In short: there are signs showing that the European of the nineteenth
century is less ashamed of his instincts; he has gone a long way
towards acknowledging his unconditional naturalness and immorality,
_without bitterness_: on the contrary, he is strong enough to endure
this point of view alone.

To some ears this will sound as though _corruption_ had made strides:
and certain it is that man has not drawn nearer to the "Nature"
which Rousseau speaks about, but has gone one step farther in the
civilisation before which Rousseau _stood in horror._ We have grown
_stronger,_ we have drawn nearer to the seventeenth century, more
particularly to the taste which reigned towards its close (Dancourt, Le
Sage, Renard).


121.

_Culture_ versus _Civilisation._--The culminating stages of culture
and civilisation lie apart: one must not be led astray as regards the
fundamental antagonism existing between culture and civilisation.
From the moral standpoint, great periods in the history of culture
have always been periods of corruption; while on the other hand,
those periods in which man was deliberately and compulsorily _tamed_
("civilisation") have always been periods of intolerance towards the
most intellectual and most audacious natures. Civilisation desires
something different from what culture strives after: their aims may
perhaps be opposed....


122.

_What I warn people against_: confounding the instincts of decadence
with those of _humanity_;

Confounding the _dissolving means_ of civilisation _and those which
necessarily promote decadence,_ with _culture_;

Confounding _debauchery,_ and the principle, "laisser aller," with the
_Will to Power_ (the latter is the exact reverse of the former).


123.

The unsolved problems which I set anew: the _problem of civilisation,_
the struggle between Rousseau and Voltaire about the year 1760. Man
becomes deeper, more mistrustful, more "immoral," stronger, more
self-confident--and therefore "_more natural_"; that is "progress."
In this way, by a process of division of labour, the more evil strata
and the milder and tamer strata of society get separated: so that _the
general facts_ are not visible at first sight.... It is a sign of
_strength,_ and of the self-control and fascination of the strong, that
these stronger strata possess the arts in order to make their greater
powers for evil felt as something "_higher_" As soon as there is
"progress" there is a transvaluation of the strengthened factors into
the "good."


124.

Man must have the _courage_ of his natural instincts restored to him.--

_The poor opinion_ he has of himself must be destroyed (_not_ in the
sense of the individual, but in the sense of the _natural_ man ...)--

The _contradictions_ in things must be eradicated, after it has been
well understood that we were responsible for them--

_Social idiosyncrasies_ must be stamped out of existence (guilt,
punishment, justice, honesty, freedom, love, etc. etc.)--

An advance towards "_naturalness_": in all political questions, even
in the relations between parties, even in merchants', workmen's, or
contractors' parties, only _questions_ of _power_ come into play:--
"what one _can_ do" is the first question, what one ought to do is only
a secondary consideration.


125.

Socialism--or the _tyranny_ of the meanest and the most
brainless,--that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the
mummers, brought to its zenith,--is, as a matter, of fact, the logical
conclusion of "modern ideas" and their latent anarchy: but in the
genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming
resolutions or even for coming _to an end_ at all, is paralysed. Men
follow--but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on the
whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing
than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces
of present-day socialists--and what wretched and nonsensical feelings
does not their style reveal to us!--and the childish lamblike happiness
of their hopes and desires. Nevertheless, in many places in Europe,
there may be violent hand-to-hand struggles and irruptions on their
account: the coming century is likely to be convulsed in more than
one spot, and the Paris Commune, which finds defenders and advocates
even in Germany, will seem to have been but a slight indigestion
compared with what is to come. Be this as it may, there will always
be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything
more than an attack of illness: and these people of property are like
one man with one faith, "one must possess something in order _to
be_ some one." This, however, is the oldest and most wholesome of
all instincts; I should add: "one must desire more than one has in
order to _become_ more." For this is the teaching which life itself
preaches to all living things: the morality of Development. To have
and to wish to have more, in a word, _Growth_--that is life itself.
In the teaching of socialism "a will to the denial of life" is but
poorly concealed: botched men and races they must be who have devised
a teaching of this sort. In fact, I even wish a few experiments might
be made to show that in a socialistic society, life denies itself,
and itself cuts away its own roots. The earth is big enough and man
is still unexhausted enough for a practical lesson of this sort and
_demonstratio ad absurdum_--even if it were accomplished only by a vast
expenditure of lives--to seem worth while to me. Still, Socialism,
like a restless mole beneath the foundations of a society wallowing in
stupidity, will be able to achieve something useful and salutary: it
delays "Peace on Earth" and the whole process of character-softening of
the democratic herding animal; it forces the European to have an extra
supply of intellect,--that is to say, craft and caution, and prevents
his entirely abandoning the manly and warlike qualities,--it also saves
Europe awhile from the _marasmus femininus_ which is threatening it.


126.

The most favourable obstacles and remedies of modernity:

(1) Compulsory _military service_ with real wars in which all joking is
laid aside.

(2) _National_ thick-headedness (which simplifies and concentrates).

(3) Improved _nutrition_ (meat).

(4) Increasing _cleanliness_ and wholesomeness in the home.

(5) The predominance of _physiology_ over theology, morality,
economics, and politics.

(6) Military discipline in the exaction and the practice of one's
"duty" (it is no longer customary to praise).


127.

I am delighted at the military development of Europe, also at the inner
anarchical conditions: the period of quietude and "Chinadom" which
Galiani prophesied for this century is now over. Personal and _manly_
capacity, bodily capacity recovers its value, valuations are becoming
more physical, nutrition consists ever more and more of flesh. Fine
men have once more become possible. Bloodless sneaks (with mandarins
at their head, as Comte imagined them) are now a matter of the past.
The savage in every one of us is _acknowledged,_ even the wild animal.
_Precisely on that account,_ philosophers will have a better chance.
--Kant is a scarecrow!


128.

I have not yet _seen_ any reasons to feel discouraged. He who acquires
and preserves a _strong will,_ together with a broad mind, has a more
favourable chance now than ever he had. For the _plasticity_ of man has
become exceedingly great in democratic Europe: men who learn easily,
who readily adapt themselves, are the rule: the gregarious animal of
a high order of intelligence is prepared. He who would command finds
those who _must_ obey: I have Napoleon and Bismarck in mind, for
instance. The struggle against strong and unintelligent wills, which
forms the surest obstacle in one's way, is really insignificant Who
would not be able to knock down these "objective" gentlemen with weak
wills, such as Ranke and Renan!


129.

_Spiritual enlightenment_ is an unfailing means of making men
uncertain, weak of will, and needful of succour and support; in
short, of developing the herding instincts in them. That is why all
great artist-rulers, hitherto (Confucius in China, the Roman Empire,
Napoleon, Popedom--at a time when they had the courage of their
worldliness and frankly pursued power) in whom the ruling instincts,
that had prevailed until their time, culminated, also made use of the
spiritual enlightenment--or at least allowed it to be supreme (after
the style of the Popes of the Renaissance). The self-deception of
the masses on this point, in every democracy for instance, is of the
greatest possible value: all that makes men smaller and more amenable
is pursued under the title "progress."


130.

The highest equity and mildness as a condition of _weakness_ (the New
Testament and the early Christian community--manifesting itself in the
form of utter foolishness in the Englishmen, Darwin and Wallace). Your
equity, ye higher men, drives you to universal suffrage, etc.; your
"humanity" urges you to be milder towards crime and stupidity. In the
_end_ you will thus help stupidity and harmlessness to conquer.

_Outwardly_: Ages of terrible wars, insurrections, explosions.
_Inwardly_: ever more and more weakness among men; _events_ take the
_form of excitants._ The Parisian as the type of the European extreme.

_Consequences_: (1) Savages (at first, of course, in conformity with
the culture that has reigned hitherto); (2) _Sovereign individuals_
(where _powerful_ barbarous _masses_ and emancipation from all that
has been, are crossed). The age of greatest stupidity, brutality, and
wretchedness in the masses, and _in the highest individuals._


131.

An incalculable number of higher individuals now perish: but he who
_escapes their fate_ is as strong as the devil. In this respect we are
reminded of the conditions which prevailed in the Renaissance.


132.

How are _Good Europeans_ such as ourselves distinguished from the
patriots? In the first place, we are atheists and immoralists, but we
take care to support the religions and the morality which we associate
with the gregarious instinct: for by means of them, an order of men is,
so to speak, being prepared, which must at some time or other fall into
our hands, which must actually _crave_ for our hands.

Beyond Good and Evil,--certainly; but we insist upon the unconditional
and strict preservation of herd-morality.

We reserve ourselves the right to several kinds of philosophy which it
is necessary to learn: under certain circumstances, the pessimistic
kind as a hammer; a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable.

We should probably support the development and the maturation of
democratic tendencies; for it conduces to weakness of will: in
"Socialism" we recognise a thorn which prevents smug ease.

Attitude towards the people.. Our prejudices; we pay attention to the
results of cross-breeding.

Detached, well-to-do, strong: irony concerning the "press" and its
culture. Our care: that scientific men should not become journalists.
We mistrust any form of culture that tolerates news-paper reading or
writing.

We make our accidental positions (as Goethe and Stendhal did), our
experiences, a foreground, and we lay stress upon them, so that we
may deceive concerning our backgrounds. We ourselves _wait_ and
avoid putting our heart into them. They serve us as refuges, such as
a wanderer might require and use--but we avoid feeling at home in
them. We are ahead of our fellows in that we have had a _disciplina
voluntatis._ All strength is directed to the _development of the will,_
an art which allows us to wear masks, an art of understanding _beyond_
the passions (also "super-European" thought at times).

This is our preparation before becoming the law-givers of the future
and the lords of the earth; if not we, at least our children. Caution
where marriage is concerned.


133.

_The twentieth century._--The Abbé Galiani says somewhere: "_La
prévoyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de l'Europe. Si l'on
voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prévoir, tout le monde serait
tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu'on serait plus malheureux parce qu'on
ne ferait pas la guerre._" As I in no way share the unwarlike views of
my deceased friend Galiani, I have no fear whatever of saying something
beforehand with the view of conjuring in some way the cause of wars.

A condition of excessive _consciousness,_ after the worst of
earthquakes: with new questions.


134.

It is the time of the _great noon, of the most appalling
enlightenment_: my particular kind of _Pessimism_: the great
starting-point.

(1) Fundamental contradiction between civilisation and the elevation of
man.

(2) Moral valuations regarded as a history of lies and the art of
calumny in the service of the Will to Power (of the will of the _herd,_
which rises against stronger men).

(3) The conditions which determine every elevation in culture (the
facilitation of a _selection_ being made at the cost of a crowd) are
the _conditions_ of all growth.

(4). _The multiformity_ of the world as a question of _strength,_
which sees all things in the _perspective of their growth._ The moral
Christian values to be regarded as the insurrection and mendacity of
slaves (in comparison with the aristocratic values of the _ancient
world). _




SECOND BOOK.

CRITICISM OF THE HIGHEST VALUES THAT HAVE PREVAILED HITHERTO.



I.


CRITICISM OF RELIGION.


All the beauty and sublimity with which we have invested real and
imagined things, I will show to be the property and product of man, and
this should be his most beautiful apology. Man as a poet, as a thinker,
as a god, as love, as power. Oh, the regal liberality with which he
has lavished gifts upon things in order _to impoverish_ himself and
make himself feel wretched! Hitherto, this has been his greatest
disinterestedness, that he admired and worshipped, and knew how to
conceal from himself that _he_ it was who had created what he admired.



1. CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS.


135.

_The origin of religion._--Just as the illiterate man of to-day
believes that his wrath is the cause of his being angry, that his
mind is the cause of his thinking, that his soul is the cause of
his feeling, in short, just as a mass of psychological entities
are still unthinkingly postulated as causes; so, in a still more
primitive age, the same phenomena were interpreted by man by means of
personal entities. Those conditions of his soul which seemed strange,
overwhelming, and rapturous, he regarded as obsessions and bewitching
influences emanating from the power of some personality. (Thus the
Christian, the most puerile and backward man of this age, traces hope,
peace, and the feeling of deliverance to a psychological inspiration
on the part of God: being by nature a sufferer and a creature in need
of repose, states of happiness, peace, and resignation, perforce seem
strange to him, and seem to need some explanation.) Among intelligent,
strong, and vigorous races, the epileptic is mostly the cause of a
belief in the existence of some _foreign power_; but all such examples
of apparent subjection--as, for instance, the bearing of the exalted
man, of the poet, of the great criminal, or the passions, love and
revenge--lead to the invention of supernatural powers. A condition is
made concrete by being identified with a personality, and when this
condition overtakes anybody, it is ascribed to that personality. In
other words: in the psychological concept of God, a certain state of
the soul is personified as a cause in order to appear as an effect.

The psychological logic is as follows: when the _feeling of power_
suddenly seizes and overwhelms a man,--and this takes place in the
case of all the great passions,--a doubt arises in him concerning his
own person: he dare not think himself the cause of this astonishing
sensation--and thus he posits a _stronger_ person, a Godhead as its
cause. In short, the origin of religion lies in the extreme feelings
of power, which, being _strange,_ take men by surprise: and just
as the sick man, who feels one of his limbs unaccountably heavy,
concludes that another man must be sitting on it, so the ingenuous
_homo religiosus,_ divides himself up into _several people._ Religion
is an example of the "_altération de la personalité._" A sort of _fear_
and _sensation of terror_ in one's own presence.... But also a feeling
of inordinate _rapture_ and _exaltation._ Among sick people, the
_sensation of health_ suffices to awaken a belief in the proximity of
God.


136.

_Rudimentary psychology of the religious man:--_All changes are
effects; all effects are effects of will (the notion of "Nature"
and of "natural law," is lacking); all effects presuppose an agent.
Rudimentary psychology: one is only a cause oneself, when one knows
that one has willed something.

Result: States of power impute to man the feeling that he is _not_ the
cause of them, that he is not _responsible_ for them: they come without
being willed to do so--consequently we cannot be their originators:
will that is not free (that is to say, the knowledge of a change in our
condition which we have not helped to bring about) requires a _strong_
will.

_Consequence of this rudimentary psychology_: Man has never dared to
credit _himself_ with his strong and startling moods, he has always
conceived them as "passive," as "imposed upon him from outside":
Religion is the offshoot of a _doubt_ concerning the entity of the
person, an _altération_ of the personality: in so far as everything
great and strong in man was considered _superhuman_ and _foreign,_ man
belittled himself,--he laid the two sides, the very pitiable and weak
side, and the very strong and startling side apart, in two spheres, and
called the one "Man" and the other "God."

And he has continued to act on these lines; during the period of the
_moral idiosyncrasy_ he did not interpret his lofty and sublime moral
states as "proceeding from his own will" or as the "work" of the
person. Even the Christian himself divides his personality into two
parts, the one a mean and weak fiction which he calls man, and the
other which he calls God (Deliverer and Saviour).

Religion has lowered the concept "man"; its ultimate conclusion is
that all goodness, greatness, and truth are superhuman, and are only
obtainable by the grace of God.


137.

One way of raising man out of his self-abasement, which brought about
the decline of the point of view that classed all lofty and strong
states of the soul, as strange, was the theory of relationship. These
lofty and strong states of the soul could at least be interpreted as
the influence of our _forebears_; we belonged to each other, we were
irrevocably joined; we grew in our own esteem, by acting according to
the example of a model known to us all.

There is an attempt on the part of noble families to associate religion
with their own feelings of self-respect. Poets and seers do the same
thing; they feel proud that they have been worthy,--that they have been
_selected_ for such association,--they esteem it an honour, not to be
considered at all as individuals, but as mere mouthpieces (Homer).

Man gradually takes possession of the highest and proudest states of
his soul, as also of his acts and his works. Formerly it was believed
that one paid oneself the greatest honour by denying one's own
responsibility for the highest deeds one accomplished, and by ascribing
them to--God. The will which was not free, appeared to be that which
imparted a higher value to a deed: in those days a god was postulated
as the author of the deed.


138.

Priests are the actors of something which is supernatural, either in
the way of ideals, gods, or saviours, and they have to make people
believe in them; in this they find their calling, this is the purpose
of their instincts; in order to make it as credible as possible, they
have to exert themselves to the utmost extent in the art of posing;
their actor's sagacity must, above all, aim at giving them _a clean
conscience,_ by means of which, alone, it is possible to persuade
effectively.


139.

The priest wishes to make it an understood thing, that he is the
_highest type_ of man, that he rules,--even over those who wield the
power,--that he is indispensable and unassailable,--that he is the
_strongest power_ in the community, not by any means to be replaced or
undervalued.

_Means thereto_: he alone is cultured; he alone is the _man of virtue_;
he alone has _sovereign power over himself_: he alone is, in a certain
sense, God, and ultimately goes back to the Godhead; he alone is the
middleman between God and _others_; the Godhead administers punishment
to every one who puts the priest at a disadvantage, or who thinks in
opposition to him.

_Means thereto: Truth_ exists. There is only one way of attaining to
it, and that is to become a priest. Everything good, which relates
either to order, nature, or tradition, is to be traced to the wisdom
of the priests. The Holy Book is their work. The whole of nature is
only a fulfilment of the maxims which it contains. No other _source of
goodness_ exists than the priests. Every other kind of perfection, even
the _warrior's,_ is different in rank from that of the priests.

_Consequence_: If the priest is to be the _highest_ type, then the
_degrees_ which lead to his _virtues_ must be the degrees of value
among men. _Study, emancipation from material things, inactivity,
impassibility, absence of passion, solemnity_;--the opposite of all
this is found in the _lowest_ type of man.

The priest has taught a kind of morality which conduced to his being
considered the _highest type_ of man. He conceives a _type_ which
is the _reverse_ of his own: the Chandala. By making _these_ as
contemptible as possible, some strength is lent to the _order of
castes._ The priest's excessive fear of _sensuality_ also implies that
the latter is the most serious threat to the _order of castes_ (that is
to say, _order_ in general).... Every "free tendency" _in puncto puncti
overthrows_ the laws of marriage.


140.

The _philosopher_ considered as the development of the _priestly_
type:--He has the heritage of the priest in his blood; even as a rival
he is compelled to fight with the same weapons as the priest of his
time;--he aspires to the _highest authority._

What is it that bestows _authority_ upon men who have no physical power
to wield (no army, no arms at all ...)? How do such men gain authority
_over_ those who are in possession of material power, and who represent
authority? (Philosophers enter the lists against princes, victorious
conquerors, and wise statesmen.)

They can do it only by establishing the belief that they are in
possession of a power which is higher and stronger--_God._ Nothing is
strong enough: every one is in _need_ of the mediation and the services
of priests. They establish themselves as indispensable _intercessors._
The conditions of their existence are: (1) That people believe in the
absolute superiority of their god, in fact believe in _their god_';
(2) that there is no other access, no direct access to god, save
through them. The _second_ condition alone gives rise to the concept
"heterodoxy"; the _first_ to the concept "disbelievers" (that is to
say, he who believes in another god).


141.

_A Criticism of the Holy Lie._--That a lie is allowed in pursuit
of holy ends 'is a principle which belongs to the theory of all
priestcraft, and the object of this inquiry is to discover to what
extent it belongs to its practice.

But philosophers, too, whenever they intend taking over the leadership
of mankind, with the ulterior motives of priests in their minds, have
never failed to arrogate to themselves the right to lie: Plato above
all. But the most elaborate of lies is the double lie, developed
by the typically Arian philosophers of the Vedanta: two systems,
contradicting each other in all their main points, but interchangeable,
complementary, and mutually expletory, when educational ends were in
question. The lie of the one has to create a condition in which the
truth of the other can alone become _intelligible...._

How _far_ does the holy lie of priests and philosophers go?--The
question here is, what hypotheses do they advance in regard to
education, and what are the dogmas they are compelled to _invent_ in
order to do justice to these hypotheses?

First: they must have power, authority, and absolute credibility on
their side.

Secondly: they must have the direction of the whole of Nature, so that
everything affecting the individual seems to be determined by their law.

Thirdly: their domain of power must be very extensive, in order that
its control may escape the notice of those they subject: they must know
the penal code of the life beyond--of the life "after death,"--and, of
course, the means whereby the road to blessedness may be discovered.
They have to put the notion of a natural course of things out of sight,
but as they are intelligent and thoughtful people, they are able to
_promise_ a host of effects, which they naturally say are conditioned
by prayer or by the strict observance of their law. They can, moreover,
_prescribe_ a large number of things which are exceedingly reasonable
--only they must not point to experience or empiricism as the source
of this wisdom, but to revelation or to the fruits of the "most severe
exercises of penance."

The _holy lie,_ therefore, applies principally to the _purpose_ of
an action (the natural purpose, reason, is made to vanish: a moral
purpose, the observance of some law, a service to God, seems to be the
purpose): to the _consequence_ of an action (the natural consequence
is interpreted as something supernatural, and, in order to be on
surer ground, other incontrollable and supernatural consequences are
foretold).

In this way the concepts _good_ and _evil_ are created, and seem
quite divorced from the natural concepts: "useful," "harmful,"
"life-promoting," "life-retarding,"--indeed, inasmuch as _another_
life is imagined, the former concepts may even be _antagonistic_ to
Nature's concepts of good and evil. In this way, the proverbial concept
"conscience" is created: an inner voice, which, though it makes itself
heard in regard to every action, does not measure the worth of that
action according to its results, but according to its conformity or
non-conformity to the "law."

The holy lie therefore invented: (1) a _god_ who _punishes_ and
_rewards,_ who recognises and carefully observes the law-book of the
priests, and who is particular about sending them into the world as
his mouthpieces and plenipotentiaries; (2) an _After Life,_ in which,
alone, the great penal machine is supposed to be active--to this end
the _immortality of the soul_ was invented; (3) a _conscience in
man,_ understood as the knowledge that good and evil are permanent
values--that God himself speaks through it, whenever its counsels are
in conformity with priestly precepts; (4) _Morality_ as the denial of
all natural processes, as the subjection of all phenomena to a moral
order, as the interpretation of all phenomena as the effects of a moral
order of things (that is to say, the concept of punishment and reward),
as the only power and only creator of all transformations; (5) _Truths_
given, revealed, and identical with the teaching of the priests: as the
condition to all salvation and happiness in this and the next world.

_In short_: what is the price paid for the _improvement_ supposed
to be due to morality?--The unhinging of _reason,_ the reduction of
all motives to fear and hope (punishment and reward); _dependence_
upon the tutelage of priests, and upon a formulary exactitude
which is supposed to express a divine will; the implantation of
a "conscience" which establishes a false science in the place of
experience and experiment: as though all one had to do or had not
to do were predetermined--a kind of contraction of the seeking and
striving spirit;--_in short_: the worst _mutilation_ of man that can be
imagined, and it is pretended that "the good man" is the result.

Practically speaking, all reason, the whole heritage of intelligence,
subtlety, and caution, the first condition of the priestly canon, is
arbitrarily reduced, when it is too late, to a simple _mechanical_
process: conformity with the law becomes a purpose in itself, it is the
highest purpose; _Life no longer contains any problems_;--the whole
conception of the world is polluted by the notion of _punishment_;
--Life itself, owing to the fact that the _priests life_ is upheld as
the _non plus ultra_ of perfection, is transformed into a denial and
pollution of life;--the concept "God" represents an aversion to Life,
and even a criticism and a contemning of it. Truth is transformed in
the mind, into _priestly_ prevarication; the striving after truth, into
the _study of the Scriptures,_ into the way to _become a theologian._


142.

_A criticism of the Law-Book of Manu._--The whole book is founded upon
the holy lie. Was it the well-being of humanity that inspired the whole
of this system? Was this kind of man, who believes in the _interested_
nature of every action, interested or not interested in the success
of this system? The desire to improve mankind--whence comes the
inspiration to this feeling? Whence is the concept improvement taken?

We find a class of men, _the sacerdotal class,_ who consider themselves
the standard pattern, the highest example and most perfect expression
of the type man. The notion of "improving" mankind, to this class of
men, means to make mankind like themselves. They believe in their own
superiority, they _will_ be superior in practice: the cause of the holy
lie is _The Will to Power...._

Establishment of the dominion: to this end, ideas which place a _non
plus ultra_ of power with the priesthood are made to prevail. Power
acquired by lying was the result of the recognition of the fact that it
was not already possessed physically, in a military form.... Lying as a
supplement to power--this is a new concept of "truth."

It is a mistake to presuppose _unconscious_ and _innocent_ development
in this quarter--a sort of self-deception. Fanatics are not the
discoverers of such exhaustive systems of oppression.... Cold-blooded
reflection must have been at work here; the same sort of reflection
which Plato showed when he worked out his "State"--"One must desire the
means when one desires the end." Concerning this political maxim, all
legislators have always been quite clear.

We possess the classical model, and it is specifically Arian: we
can therefore hold the most gifted and most reflective type of man
responsible for the most systematic lie that has ever been told....
Everywhere almost the lie was copied, and thus _Avian influence_
corrupted the world....


143.

Much is said to-day about the _Semitic_ spirit of the _New Testament_:
but the thing referred to is merely priestcraft,--and in the purest
example of an Arian law-book, in Manu, this kind of "Semitic
spirit"--that is to say, _Sacerdotalism,_ is worse than anywhere else.

The development of the Jewish hierarchy is _not_ original: they learnt
the scheme in Babylon--it is Arian. When, later on, the same thing
became dominant in Europe, under the preponderance of Germanic blood,
this was in conformity to the spirit of the _ruling race_: a striking
case of atavism. The Germanic middle ages aimed at a revival of the
_Arian order of castes_.

Mohammedanism in its turn learned from Christianity the use of a
"Beyond" as an instrument of punishment.

The scheme of a _permanent community,_ with priests at its
head--this oldest product of Asia's great culture in the domain of
organisation--_naturally_ provoked reflection and imitation in every
way.--Plato is an example of this, but above all, the Egyptians.


144.

_Moralities_ and _religions_ are the principal means by which one can
modify men into whatever one likes; provided one is possessed of an
overflow of creative power, and can cause one's will to prevail over
long periods of time.


145.

If one wish to see an _affirmative_ Arian religion which is the product
of a _ruling_ class, one should read the law-book of Manu. (The
deification of the feeling of power in the Brahmin: it is interesting
to note that it originated in the warrior-caste, and was later
transferred to the priests.)

If one wish to see an _affirmative_ religion of the Semitic order,
which is the product of the _ruling_ class, one should read the Koran
or the earlier portions of the Old Testament. (_Mohammedanism,_ as a
religion for men, has profound contempt for the sentimentality and
prevarication of Christianity, ... which, according to Mohammedans, is
a woman's religion.)

If one wish to see a _negative_ religion of the Semitic order, which is
the product of the _oppressed_ class, one should read the New Testament
(which, according to Indian and Arian points of view, is a religion for
the Chandala).

If one wish to see a _negative_ Arian religion, which is the product of
the _ruling_ classes, one should study Buddhism.

It is quite in the nature of things that we have no Arian religion
which is the product of the _oppressed_ classes; for that would have
been a contradiction: a race of masters is either paramount or else it
goes to the dogs.


146.

Religion, _per se,_ has nothing to do with morality; yet both offshoots
of the Jewish religion are _essentially_ moral religions--which
prescribe the rules of living, and procure obedience to their
principles by means of rewards and punishment.


147.

_Paganism--Christianity.--Paganism_ is that which says yea to all
that is natural, it is innocence in being natural, "naturalness."
_Christianity_ is that which says no to all that is natural, it is a
certain lack of dignity in being natural; hostility to Nature.

"Innocent":--Petronius is innocent, for instance. Beside this happy
man a Christian is absolutely devoid of innocence. But since even
the _Christian_ status is ultimately only a natural condition, the
term "Christian" soon begins to mean the _counterfeiting of the
psychological interpretation._


148.

The Christian priest is from the root a mortal enemy of sensuality: one
cannot imagine a greater contrast to his attitude than the guileless,
slightly awed, and solemn attitude, which the religious rites of the
most honourable women in Athens maintained in the presence of the
symbol of sex. In all non-ascetic religions the procreative act is
_the_ secret _per se_: a sort of symbol of perfection and of the
designs of the future: re-birth, immortality.


149.

Our belief in ourselves is the greatest fetter, the most telling spur,
and the _strongest pinion._ Christianity ought to have elevated the
innocence of man to the position of an article of belief--men would
then have become gods: in those days believing was still possible.


150.

The egregious _lie_ of history: as if it were the _corruption_ of
Paganism that opened the road to Christianity. As a matter of fact, it
was the enfeeblement and _moralisation_ of the man of antiquity. The
new interpretation of natural functions, which made them appear like
_vices,_ had already gone before!


151.

Religions are ultimately wrecked by the belief in morality. The idea of
the Christian moral God becomes untenable,--hence "Atheism,"--as though
there could be no other god.

_Culture_ is likewise wrecked by the belief in morality. For when the
necessary and only possible conditions of its growth are revealed,
nobody _will_ any longer countenance it (Buddhism).


152.

_The physiology of Nihilistic religions._--All in all, the _Nihilistic_
religions are _systematised histories of sickness_ described in
religious and moral terminology.

In pagan cultures it is around the interpretation of the great annual
cycles that the religious cult turns; in Christianity it is around a
cycle of _paralytic phenomena._


153.

This _Nihilistic_ religion gathers together all the _decadent elements_
and things of like order which it can find in antiquity, viz.:--

_(a)_ The _weak_ and the _botched_ (the refuse of the ancient world,
and that of which it rid itself with most violence).

_(b)_ Those who are _morally obsessed_ and _anti-pagan._

_(c)_ Those who are _weary of politics_ and indifferent (the _blasé_
Romans), the _denationalised,_ who know not what they are.

_(d)_ Those who are tired of themselves--who are happy to be party to a
subterranean conspiracy.


154.

_Buddha_ versus _Christ._--Among the Nihilistic religions, Christianity
and _Buddhism_ may always be sharply distinguished. _Buddhism_ is the
expression of a _fine evening,_ perfectly sweet and mild--it is a sort
of gratitude towards all that lies hidden, including that which it
entirely lacks, viz., bitterness, disillusionment, and resentment.
Finally it possesses lofty intellectual love; it has got over all
the subtlety of philosophical contradictions, and is even resting
after it, though it is precisely from that source that it derives its
intellectual glory and its glow as of a sunset (it originated in the
higher classes).

_Christianity_ is a degenerative movement, consisting of all kinds
of decaying and excremental elements: it is _not_ the expression of
the downfall of a race, it is, from the root, an agglomeration of all
the morbid elements which are mutually attractive and which gravitate
to one another.... It is therefore _not_ a national religion, _not_
determined by race: it appeals to the disinherited everywhere; it
consists of a foundation of resentment against all that is successful
and dominant: it is in need of a symbol which represents the damnation
of everything successful and dominant. It is opposed to every form of
_intellectual_ movement, to all philosophy: it takes up the cudgels for
idiots, and utters a curse upon all intellect. Resentment against those
who are gifted, learned, intellectually independent: in all these it
suspects the element of success and domination.


155.

In Buddhism this thought prevails: "All passions, everything which
creates emotions and leads to blood, is a call to action"--to this
extent alone are its believers _warned_ against evil. For action has
no sense, it merely binds one to existence. All existence, however, has
no sense. Evil is interpreted as that which leads to irrationalism:
to the affirmation of means whose end is denied. A road to nonentity
is the desideratum, _hence all_ emotional impulses are regarded with
horror. For instance: "On no account seek after revenge! Be the enemy
of no one!"--The Hedonism of the weary finds its highest expression
here. Nothing is more utterly foreign to Buddhism than the Jewish
fanaticism of St. Paul: nothing could be more contrary to its instinct
than the tension, fire, and unrest of the religious man, and, above
all, that form of sensuality which sanctifies Christianity with the
name "Love." Moreover, it is the cultured and very intellectual classes
who find blessedness in Buddhism: a race wearied and besotted by
centuries of philosophical quarrels, but not _beneath all culture_ as
those classes were from which Christianity sprang.... In the Buddhistic
ideal, there is essentially an emancipation from good and evil: a
very subtle suggestion of a Beyond to all morality is thought out
in its teaching, and this Beyond is supposed to be compatible with
perfection,--the condition being, that even good actions are only
needed _pro tem.,_ merely as a means,--that is to say, in order to be
free from _all_ action.


156.

_How very curious_ it is to see a _Nihilistic_ religion such as
Christianity, sprung from, and in keeping with, a decrepit and worn-out
people, who have outlived all strong instincts, being transferred step
by step to another environment--that is to say, to a land of young
people, _who have not yet lived at all._ The joy of the final chapter,
of the fold and of the evening, preached to barbarians and Germans!
How thoroughly all of it must first have been barbarised, Germanised!
To those who had dreamed of a _Walhalla_: who found happiness only in
war!--A _super_national religion preached in the midst of chaos, where
_no nations yet existed even._


157.

The only way to refute priests and religions is this: to show that
their errors are no longer _beneficent_--that they are rather harmful;
in short, that their own "proof of power" no longer holds good....



2. CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY.



158.

Christianity as an _historical reality_ should not be confounded with
that one root which its name recalls. The _other_ roots, from which it
has sprung, are by far the more important. It is an unprecedented abuse
of names to identify such manifestations of decay and such abortions as
the "Christian Church," "Christian belief," and "Christian life," with
that Holy Name. What did Christ _deny_?--Everything which to-day is
called Christian.


159.

The whole of the Christian _creed_--all Christian "truth," is idle
falsehood and deception, and is precisely the reverse of that which was
at the bottom of the first Christian movement.

All that which in the _ecclesiastical_ sense is Christian, is just
exactly what is most radically _anti-Christian_: crowds of things and
people appear instead of symbols, history takes the place of eternal
facts, it is all forms, rites, and dogmas instead of a "practice" of
life. To be really Christian would mean to be absolutely indifferent to
dogmas, cults, priests, church, and theology.

The practice of Christianity is no more an impossible phantasy than the
practice of Buddhism is: it is merely a means to happiness.


160.

Jesus goes straight to the point, the "Kingdom of Heaven" in the heart,
and He does _not_ find the means in duty to the Jewish Church; He
even regards the reality of Judaism (its need to maintain itself) as
nothing; He is concerned purely with the _inner_ man.

Neither does He make anything of all the coarse forms relating to man's
intercourse with God: He is opposed to the whole of the teaching of
repentance and atonement; He points out how man ought to live in order
to feel himself "deified," and how futile it is on his part to hope to
live properly by showing repentance and contrition for his sins. "Sin
is of no account" is practically his chief standpoint.

Sin, repentance, forgiveness,--all this does not belong to Christianity
... it is Judaism or Paganism which has become mixed up with Christ's
teaching.


161.

The _Kingdom of Heaven_ is a state of the heart (of children it is
written, "for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"): it has nothing to
do with superterrestrial things. The Kingdom of God "cometh," not
chronologically or historically, not on a certain day in the calendar;
it is not something which one day appears and was not previously there;
it is a "change of feeling in the individual," it is something which
may come at any time and which may be absent at any time....


162.

_The thief on the cross_;--When the criminal himself, who endures a
painful death, declares: "the way this Jesus suffers and dies, without
a murmur of revolt or enmity, graciously and resignedly, is the only
right way," he assents to the gospel; and by this very fact _he is in
Paradise...._


163.

Jesus bids us:--not to resist, either by deeds or in our heart, him who
ill-treats us;

He bids us admit of no grounds for separating ourselves from our wives;

He bids us make no distinction between foreigners and
fellow-countrymen, strangers and familiars;

He bids us show anger to no one, and treat no one with contempt;--give
alms secretly; not to desire to become rich;--not to swear;--not to
stand in judgment;--become reconciled with our enemies and forgive
offences;--not to worship in public.

"Blessedness" is nothing promised: it is here, with us, if we only wish
to live and act in a particular way.


164.

_Subsequent Additions_;--The whole of the prophet- and
thaumaturgist-attitudes and the bad temper; while the conjuring-up of a
supreme tribunal of justice is an abominable corruption (see Mark vi.
11: "And whosoever shall not receive you.... Verily I say unto you, It
shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrha," etc.). The "fig tree"
(Matt. xxi. 18, 19): "Now in the morning as he returned into the city,
he hungered. And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and
found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit
grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered
away."


165.

The teaching of rewards and punishments has become mixed up with
Christianity in a way which is quite absurd; everything is thereby
spoilt. In the same way, the practice of the first _ecclesia
militans,_ of the Apostle Paul and his attitude, is put forward as if
it had been _commanded_ or predetermined.

The subsequent glorification of the actual _life_ and _teaching_ of the
first Christians: as if everything had been _prescribed beforehand_ and
had been only a matter of _following_ directions----And as for the
_fulfilment of scriptural prophecies_: how much of all that is more
than forgery and cooking?


166.

Jesus opposed a real life, a life in truth, to ordinary life: nothing
could have been more foreign to His mind than the somewhat heavy
nonsense of an "eternal Peter,"--of the eternal duration of a single
person. Precisely what He combats is the exaggerated importance of the
"person": how can He wish to immortalise it?

He likewise combats the hierarchy within the community; He never
promises a certain proportion of reward for a certain proportion of
deserts: how can He have meant to teach the doctrine of punishment and
reward in a Beyond?


167.

Christianity is an ingenuous attempt at bringing about a _Buddhistic
movement in favour of peace,_ sprung from the very heart of the
resenting masses ... but transformed by _Paul_ into a mysterious
pagan cult, which was ultimately able to accord with the whole of
_State organisation_ ... and which carries on war, condemns, tortures,
conjures, and hates.

Paul bases his teaching upon the need of mystery felt by the great
masses capable of religious emotions: he seeks a _victim,_ a bloody
phantasmagoria, which may be equal to a contest with the images of
a secret cult: God on the cross, the drinking of blood, the _unio
mystica_ with the "victim."

He seeks the prolongation of life after death (the blessed and atoned
after-life of the individual soul) which he puts in causal relation
with the _victim_ already referred to (according to the type of
Dionysos, Mithras, Osiris).

He feels the necessity of bringing notions of _guilt_ and _sin_
into the foreground, _not_ a new practice of life (as Jesus Himself
demonstrated and taught), but a new cult, a new belief, a belief in a
miraculous metamorphosis ("Salvation" through belief).

He understood the _great needs of the pagan worlds_ and he gave quite
an absolutely arbitrary picture of those two plain facts, Christ's life
and death. He gave the whole a new accent, altering the equilibrium
everywhere ... he was one of the most active destroyers of primitive
Christianity.

The attempt made on the life of _priests and theologians_ culminated,
thanks to Paul, in a new priesthood and theology--a _ruling_ caste and
a _Church._

The attempt made to suppress the fussy importance of the "person,"
culminated in the belief in the eternal "personality" (and in the
anxiety concerning "eternal salvation" ...), and in the most
paradoxical exaggeration of individual egoism.

This is the humorous side of the question--tragic humour: Paul again
set up on a large scale precisely what Jesus had overthrown by His
life. At last, when the Church edifice was complete, it even sanctioned
the _existence_ of the _State._


168.

The Church is precisely that against which Jesus inveighed--and against
which He taught His disciples to fight.


169.

A God who died for our sins, salvation through faith, resurrection
after death--all these things are the counterfeit coins of real
Christianity, for which that pernicious blockhead Paul must be held
responsible.

The _life which must serve as an example_ consists in love and
humility; in the abundance of hearty emotion which does not even
exclude the lowliest; in the formal renunciation of all desire of
making its rights felt; in conquest, in the sense of triumph over
oneself; in the belief in salvation in this world, despite all sorrow,
opposition, and death; in forgiveness and the absence of anger and
contempt; in the absence of a desire to be rewarded; in the refusal
to be bound to anybody; abandonment to all that is most spiritual and
intellectual;--in fact, a very proud life controlled by the will of a
servile and poor life.

Once the Church had allowed itself to take over _all the Christian
practice,_ and had formally sanctioned the State,--that kind of life
which Jesus combats and condemns,--it was obliged to lay the sense
of Christianity in other things than early Christian ideals--that is
to say, in the _faith_ in incredible things, in the ceremonial of
prayers, worship, feasts, etc. etc. The notions "sin," "forgiveness,"
"punishment," "reward"--everything, in fact, which had nothing in
common with, and was quite _absent_ from, primitive Christianity, now
comes into the foreground.

An appalling stew of Greek philosophy and Judaism; asceticism;
continual judgments and condemnations; the order of rank, etc.


170.

Christianity has, from the first, always transformed the symbolical
into crude realities:

(1) The antitheses "true life" and "false life" were misunderstood and
changed into "life here" and "life beyond."

(2) The notion "eternal life," as opposed to the personal life which is
ephemeral, is translated into "personal immortality";

(3) The process of fraternising by means of sharing the same food and
drink, after the Hebrew-Arabian manner, is interpreted as the "miracle
of transubstantiation."

(4) "Resurrection" which was intended to mean the entrance to the
"true life," in the sense of being intellectually "born again," becomes
an historical contingency, supposed to take place at some moment after
death;

(5) The teaching of the Son of man as the "Son of God,"--that is to
say, the life-relationship between man and God,--becomes the "second
person of the Trinity," and thus the filial relationship of every
man--even the lowest--to God, is _done away with_;

(6) Salvation through faith (that is to say, that there is no other way
to this filial relationship to God, save through the _practice of life_
taught by Christ) becomes transformed into the belief that there is a
miraculous way of _atoning_ for all _sin_; though not through our own
endeavours, but by means of Christ:

For all these purposes, "Christ on the Cross" had to be interpreted
afresh. The _death_ itself would certainly not be the principal feature
of the event ... it was only another sign pointing to the way in
which one should behave towards the authorities and the laws of the
world--_that one was not to defend oneself--this was the exemplary
life._


171.

Concerning the psychology of _Paul._--The important fact is Christ's
death. This remains to be _explained ..._. That there may be truth or
error in an explanation never entered these people's heads: one day a
sublime possibility strikes them, "His death _might_ mean so and so"
--and it forthwith _becomes_ so and so. An hypothesis is proved by the
sublime _ardour_ it lends to its discoverer....

"The proof of strength": _i.e.,_ a thought is demonstrated by its
_effects_ ("by their fruits," as the Bible ingenuously says); that
which fires enthusiasm must be _true,_--what one loses one's blood for
must be _true--_

In every department of this world of thought, the sudden feeling of
power which an idea imparts to him who is responsible for it, is
placed to the _credit_ of that idea:--and as there seems no other way
of honouring an idea than by calling it true, the first epithet it is
honoured with is the word _true._ ... How could it have any effect
otherwise? It was imagined by some power: if that power were not
real, it could not be the cause of anything.... The thought is then
understood as _inspired_: the effect it causes has something of the
violent nature of a demoniacal influence--

A thought which a decadent like Paul could not resist and to which he
completely yields, is thus "proved" _true_!!!

All these holy epileptics and visionaries did not possess a thousandth
part of the honesty in self-criticism with which a philologist,
nowadays, reads a text, or tests the truth of an historical event....
Beside us, such people were moral <DW35>s.


172.

It matters little _whether a thing be true,_ provided it be
_effective_: total _absence of intellectual uprightness._ Everything
is good, whether it be lying, slander, or shameless "cooking," provided
it serve to heighten the degree of heat to the point at which people
"believe."

We are face to face with an actual school for the teaching of _the
means wherewith_ men are _seduced_ to a belief: we see systematic
_contempt_ for those spheres whence contradiction might come (that
is to say, for reason, philosophy, wisdom, doubt, and caution); a
shameless praising and glorification of the teaching, with continual
references to the fact that it was God who presented us with it--that
the apostle signifies nothing--that no criticism is brooked, but
only faith, acceptance; that it is the greatest blessing and favour
to receive such a doctrine of salvation; that the state in which one
should receive it, ought to be one of the profoundest thankfulness and
humility....

The resentment which the lowly feel against all those in high places,
is continually turned to account: the fact that this teaching is
revealed to them as the reverse of the wisdom of the world, against
the power of the world, seduces them to it. This teaching convinces
the outcasts and the botched of all sorts and conditions; it promises
blessedness, advantages, and privileges to the most insignificant and
most humble men; it fanaticises the poor, the small, and the foolish,
and fills them with insane vanity, as though _they_ were the meaning
and salt of the earth.

Again, I say, all this cannot be sufficiently contemned, we spare
ourselves a criticism of the teaching; it is sufficient to take
note of the means it uses in order to be aware of the nature of the
phenomenon one is examining. It identified itself with _virtue,_
it appropriated the whole of the _fascinating power of virtue,_
shamelessly, for its own purposes ... it availed itself of the power of
paradox, and of the need, manifested by old civilisation, for pepper
and absurdity; it amazed and revolted at the same time; it provoked
persecutions and ill-treatment.

It is the same kind of _well-thought-out meanness_ with which the
Jewish priesthood established their power and built up their Church....

One must be able to discern: (1) that warmth of passion "love" (resting
on a base of ardent sensuality); (2) the thoroughly _ignoble character_
of Christianity:--the continual exaggeration and verbosity;--the lack
of cool intellectuality and irony;--the unmilitary character of all its
instincts;--the priestly prejudices against manly pride, sensuality,
the sciences, the arts.


173.

_Paul_: seeks power _against_ ruling Judaism,--his attempt is too
weak.... Transvaluation of the notion "Jew": the "race" is put aside:
but that means denying the very basis of the whole structure. The
"martyr," the "fanatic," the value of all _strong_ belief. Christianity
is the _form of decay_ of the old world, after the latter's collapse,
and it is characterised by the fact that it brings all the most sickly
and unhealthy elements and needs to the top.

_Consequently other_ instincts had to step into the foreground, in
order to _constitute_ an entity, a power able to stand alone--in short,
a condition of tense sorrow was necessary, like that out of which the
Jews had derived their _instinct of self-preservation...._

The persecution of Christians was invaluable for this purpose.

Unity in the face of danger; the conversion of the masses becomes the
only means of putting an end to the persecution of the individual. (The
notion "conversion" is therefore made as elastic as possible.)


174.

The _Christian Judaic_ life: here resentment did not prevail. The
great persecutions alone could have driven out the passions to that
extent--as also the _ardour of love_ and _hate._

When the creatures a man most loves are sacrificed before his eyes for
the sake of his faith, that man becomes _aggressive_; the triumph of
Christianity is due to its persecutors.

_Asceticism_ is not specifically Christian: this is what Schopenhauer
misunderstood. It only shoots up in Christianity, wherever it would
have existed without that religion.

Melancholy Christianity, the torture and torment of the conscience,
also only a peculiarity of a particular soil, where Christian values
have taken root: it is not Christianity properly speaking. Christianity
has absorbed all the different kinds of diseases which grow from morbid
soil: one could refute it at one blow by showing that it did not know
how to resist any contagion. But _that_ precisely is the essential
feature of it. Christianity is a type of decadence.


175.

The reality on which Christianity was able to build up its power
consisted of the small dispersed _Jewish families,_ with their warmth,
tenderness, and peculiar readiness to help, which, to the whole of the
Roman Empire, was perhaps the most incomprehensible and least familiar
of their characteristics; they were also united by their pride at
being a "chosen people," concealed beneath a cloak of humility, and by
their secret denial of all that was uppermost and that possessed power
and splendour, although there was no shade of envy in their denial.
_To have recognised this as a power,_ to have regarded this _blessed_
state as communicable, seductive, and infectious even where pagans
were concerned--this constituted Paul's genius: to use up the treasure
of latent energy and cautious happiness for the purposes of "a Jewish
Church of free confession," and to avail himself of all the Jewish
experience, their propaganda, and their expertness in _the preservation
of a community_ under a foreign power--this is what he conceived to
be his duty. He it was who discovered that absolutely unpolitical and
isolated body of _paltry people,_ and their art of asserting themselves
and pushing themselves to the front, by means of a host of acquired
virtues which are made to represent the only forms of virtue ("the
self-preservative measure and weapon of success of a certain class of
man").

The principle of _love_ comes from the small community of Jewish
people: a _very passionate_ soul glows here, beneath the ashes of
humility and wretchedness: it is neither Greek, Indian, nor German. The
song in praise of love which Paul wrote is not Christian; it is the
Jewish flare of that eternal flame which is Semitic. If Christianity
has done anything essentially new in a psychological sense, it is this,
that it has _increased the temperature of the soul_ among those cooler
and more noble races who were at one time at the head of affairs;
it discovered that the most wretched life could be made rich and
invaluable, by means of an elevation of the temperature of the soul....

It is easily understood that a transfer of this sort could _not_
take place among the ruling classes: the Jews and Christians were at
a disadvantage owing to their bad manners--spiritual strength and
passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only provoke loathing (I
become aware of these bad manners while reading the New Testament). It
was necessary to be related both in baseness and sorrow with this type
of lower manhood in order to feel anything attractive in him.... The
attitude a man maintains towards the New Testament is a test of the
amount of taste he may have for the classics (see Tacitus); he who is
not revolted by it, he who does not feel honestly and deeply that he is
in the presence of a sort of _fœda superstitio_ when reading it, and
who does not draw his hand back so as not to soil his fingers--such a
man does not know what is classical. A man must feel about "the cross"
as Goethe did.[1]


[Footnote 1:

Vieles kann ich ertragen. Die meisten beschwerlichen Dinge
Duld' ich mit ruhigem Mut, wie es ein Gott mir gebeut.
Wenige sind mir jedoch wie Gift und Schlange zuwider;
Viere: Rauch des Tabaks, Wanzen, und Knoblauch und
Goethe's _Venetian Epigrams,_ No. 67.

Much can I bear. Things the most irksome
I endure with such patience as comes from a god.
Four things, however, repulse me like venom:--Tobacco
smoke, garlic, bugs, and the cross.

(TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.)
]


176.

_The reaction of paltry people_:--Love provides the feeling of highest
power. It should be understood to what extent, not man in general, but
only a certain kind of man is speaking here.

"We are godly in love, we shall be 'the children of God'; God loves us
and wants nothing from us save love"; that is to say: all morality,
obedience, and action, do not produce the same feeling of power and
freedom as love does;--a man does nothing wicked from sheer love, but
he does much more than if he were prompted by obedience and virtue
alone.

Here is the happiness of the herd, the communal feeling in big things
as in small, the living sentiment of unity felt as the _sum of the
feeling of life._ Helping, caring for, and being useful, constantly
kindle the feeling of power; visible success, the expression of
pleasure, emphasise the feeling of power; pride is not lacking either,
it is felt in the form of the community, the House of God, and the
"chosen people."

As a matter of fact, man has once more experienced an "_altération" of
his personality_: this time he called his feeling of love--God. The
awakening of such a feeling must be pictured; it is a sort of ecstasy,
a strange language, a "Gospel"--it was this newness which did not
allow man to attribute love to himself--he thought it was God leading
him on and taking shape in his heart. "God descends among men," one's
neighbour is transfigured and becomes a God (in so far as he provokes
the sentiment of love), _Jesus is the neighbour,_ the moment He is
transfigured in thought into a God, and into a cause _provoking the
feeling of power._


177.

Believers are aware that they owe an infinite amount to Christianity,
and therefore conclude that its Founder must have been a man of the
first rank.... This conclusion is false, but it is typical of the
reverents. Regarded objectively, it is, _in the first place,_ just
possible that they are mistaken concerning the extent of their debt to
Christianity: a man's convictions prove nothing concerning the thing
he is convinced about, and in religions they are more likely to give
rise to suspicions.... Secondly, it is possible that the debt owing
to Christianity is not due to its Founder at all, but to the whole
structure, the whole thing--to the Church, etc. The notion "Founder"
is so very equivocal, that it may stand even for the accidental
cause of a movement: the person of the Founder has been inflated in
proportion as the Church has grown: but even this process of veneration
allows of the conclusion that, at one time or other, this Founder was
something exceedingly insecure and doubtful--in the beginning.... Let
any one think of the _free and easy way_ in which Paul treats the
problem of the personality of Jesus, how he almost juggles with it:
some one who died, who was seen after His death,--some one whom the
Jews delivered up to death--all this was only the theme--_Paul_ wrote
the music to it.


178.

The founder of a religion _may_ be quite insignificant--a wax vesta and
no _more_!


179.

_Concerning the psychological problem of Christianity.--The driving
forces are_: resentment, popular insurrection, the revolt of the
bungled and the botched. (In Buddhism it is different: it is not _born_
of _resentment._ It rather combats resentment because the latter leads
to _action_!)

This party, which stands for freedom, understands that the _abandonment
of antagonism in thought and deed_ is a condition of distinction and
preservation. Here lies the psychological difficulty which has stood in
the way of Christianity being understood: the force which created it,
urges to a struggle against itself.

Only as a party standing _for peace_ and _innocence_ can this
insurrectionary movement hope to be successful: it must conquer by
means of excessive mildness, sweetness, softness, and its instincts
are aware of this. The _feat_ was to deny and condemn the force, of
which man is the expression, and to press the reverse of that force
continually to the fore, by word and deed.


180.

_The pretence of youthfulness._--It is a mistake to imagine that,
with Christianity, an ingenuous and youthful people rose against an
old culture; the story goes that it was out of the lowest levels of
society, where Christianity flourished and shot its roots, that the
more profound source of life gushed forth afresh: but nothing can
be understood of the psychology of Christianity, if it be supposed
that it was the expression of revived youth among a people, or of
the resuscitated strength of a race. It is rather a typical form
of decadence, of moral-softening and of hysteria, amid a general
hotch-potch of races and people that had lost all aims and had grown
weary and sick. The wonderful company which gathered round this
master-seducer of the populace, would not be at all out of place in a
Russian novel: all the diseases of the nerves seem to give one another
a rendezvous in this crowd--the absence of a known duty, the feeling
that everything is nearing its end, that nothing is any longer worth
while, and that contentment lies in _dolce far niente_.

The power and certainty of the future in the Jew's instinct, its
monstrous will for life and for power, lies in its ruling classes; the
people who upheld primitive Christianity are best distinguished by this
_exhausted condition_ of their instincts. On the one hand, they are
sick of everything; on the other, they are content with each other,
with themselves and for themselves.


181.

Christianity regarded as _emancipated Judaism_ (just as a nobility
which is both racial and indigenous ultimately emancipates itself from
these conditions, and _goes in search of_ kindred elements....).

(1) As a Church (community) on the territory of the State, as an
unpolitical institution.

(2) As life, breeding, practice, art of living.

(3) As a _religion of sin_ (sin committed against _God, being the
only recognised kind,_ and the only cause of all suffering), with a
universal cure for it. There is no sin save against God; what is done
against men, man shall not sit in judgment upon, nor call to account,
except in the name of God. At the same time, all commandments (love):
everything is associated with God, and all acts are performed according
to God's will. Beneath this arrangement there lies exceptional
intelligence (a very narrow life, such as that led by the Esquimaux,
can only be endured by most peaceful and indulgent people: the
Judæo-Christian dogma turns against sin in favour of the "sinner").


182.

The Jewish priesthood understood how to present everything it claimed
to be right as a _divine precept,_ as an act of obedience to God, and
also to introduce all those things which conduced to _preserve Israel_
and were the _conditions_ of its existence (for instance: the large
number of "_works_": circumcision and the cult of sacrifices, as the
very pivot of the national conscience), not as Nature, but as God.

_This process continued; within the very heart_ of Judaism, where the
need of these "works" was not felt (that is to say, as a means of
keeping a race distinct), a priestly sort of man was pictured, whose
bearing towards the aristocracy was like that of "noble nature"; a
sacerdotalism of the soul, which now, in order to throw its opposite
into strong relief, attaches value, not to the "dutiful acts"
themselves, but to the sentiment....

At bottom, the problem was once again, how to make a certain kind of
soul _prevail_: it was also _a popular insurrection in the midst of
a priestly people_--a pietistic movement coming from below (sinners,
publicans, women, and children). Jesus of Nazareth was the symbol of
their sect. And again, in order to believe in themselves, they were in
need of a _theological transfiguration_: they require nothing less than
"the Son of God" in order to create a belief for themselves. And just
as the priesthood had falsified the whole history of Israel, another
attempt was made, here, to _alter and falsify_ the whole history of
mankind in such a way as to make Christianity seem like the most
important event it contained. This movement could have originated only
upon the soil of Judaism, the main feature of which was the confounding
of _guilt with sorrow_ and the reduction of all _sin_ to _sin against
God._ Of all this, Christianity is the _second degree of power._


183.

The symbolism of Christianity is based upon that of _Judaism,_ which
had already transfigured all reality (history, Nature) into a holy and
artificial unreality--which refused to recognise real history, and
which showed no more interest in a natural course of things.


184.

The Jews made the attempt to prevail, after two of their castes--the
warrior and the agricultural castes, had disappeared from their midst.

In this sense they are the "castrated people": they have their priests
and then--their Chandala....

How easily a disturbance occurs among them--an insurrection of their
Chandala. This was the origin of _Christianity._

Owing to the fact that they had no knowledge of warriors except as
their masters, they introduced enmity towards the nobles, the men
of honour, pride, and power, and the _ruling_ classes, into their
religion: they are pessimists from _indignation...._

Thus they created a very important and novel position: the priests in
the van of the Chandala--against the _noble classes...._

Christianity was the logical conclusion of this movement: even in the
Jewish priesthood, it still scented the existence of the caste, of the
privileged and noble minority--_it therefore did away with priests._

Christ is the unit of the Chandala who removes the priest ... the
Chandala who redeems himself....

That is why the _French_ Revolution is the lineal descendant and the
continuator of _Christianity--_ it is characterised by an instinct of
hate towards castes, nobles, and the last privileges.


185.

The "_Christian Ideal_" put on the stage with Jewish astuteness--these
are the fundamental _psychological forces_ of its "nature":--

Revolt against the ruling spiritual powers;

The attempt to make those virtues which facilitate the _happiness of
the lowly,_ a standard of all values--in fact, to call _God_ that which
is no more than the self-preservative instinct of that class of man
possessed of least vitality;

Obedience and absolute _abstention_ from war and resistance, justified
by this ideal;

The love of one another as a result of the love of God.

_The trick_: The _denial_ of all _natural mobilia,_ and their
transference to the spiritual world beyond ... the exploitation of
_virtue_ and its _veneration_ for wholly interested motives, gradual
_denial_ of virtue in everything that is not Christian.


186.

The _profound contempt_ with which the Christian was treated by
the noble people of antiquity, is of the same order as the present
instinctive aversion to Jews: it is the hatred which free and
self-respecting classes feel towards those _who wish to creep
in secretly,_ and who combine an awkward bearing with foolish
self-sufficiency.

The New Testament is the gospel of a completely _ignoble_ species of
man; its pretensions to highest values--_yea, to all_ values, is, as a
matter of fact, revolting--even nowadays.


187.

How little the subject matters! It is the spirit which gives the thing
life! What a quantity of stuffy and sick-room air there is in all that
chatter about "redemption," "love," "blessedness," "faith," "truth,"
"eternal life"! Let any one look into a really pagan book and compare
the two; for instance, in Petronius, nothing at all is done, said,
desired, and valued, which, according to a bigoted Christian estimate,
is not sin, or even deadly sin. And yet how happy one feels with the
purer air, the superior intellectuality, the quicker pace, and the
free overflowing strength which is certain of the future! In the whole
of the New Testament there is not one _bouffonnerie_: but that fact
alone would suffice to refute any book....


188.

The _profound lack of dignity_ with which all life, which is not
Christian, is condemned: it does not suffice them to think meanly of
their actual opponents, they cannot do with less than a general slander
of everything that is not _themselves...._ An abject and crafty soul is
in the most perfect harmony with the arrogance of piety, as witness the
early Christians.

The _future_: they see that _they are heavily paid for it.... Theirs is
the muddiest kind of spirit that exists._ The whole of Christ's life is
so arranged as to confirm the prophecies of the Scriptures: He behaves
in such wise _in order that_ they may be right....


189.

The deceptive interpretation of the words, the doings, and the
condition of _dying people_; the natural fear of death, for instance,
is systematically confounded with the supposed fear of what is to
happen "after death." ...


190.

The _Christians_ have done exactly what the Jews did before them.
They introduced what they conceived to be an innovation and a thing
necessary to self-preservation into their Master's teaching, and wove
His life into it They likewise credited Him with all the wisdom of a
maker of proverbs--_in short,_ they represented their everyday life and
activity as an act of obedience, and thus sanctified their propaganda.

What it all depends upon, may be gathered from Paul: it is _not much._
What remains is the development of a type of saint, out of the values
which these people regarded as saintly.

The whole of the "doctrine of miracles," including the resurrection, is
the result of self-glorification on the part of the community, which
ascribed to its Master those qualities it ascribed to itself, but in a
higher degree (or, better still, it derived its strength from Him....)


191.

The Christians have never led the life which Jesus commanded them to
lead, and the impudent fable of the "justification by faith," and its
unique and transcendental significance, is only the result of the
Church's lack of courage and will in acknowledging those "_works_"
which Jesus commanded.

The Buddhist behaves differently from the non-Buddhist; but _the
Christian behaves as all the rest of the world does,_ and possesses a
Christianity of ceremonies and _states of the soul._

The profound and contemptible falsehood of Christianity in Europe makes
us deserve the contempt of the Arabs, Hindoos, and Chinese....

Let any one listen to the words of the first German statesman,
concerning that which has preoccupied Europe for the last forty years.


192.

"_Faith_" or "_works_"?--But that the "works," the habit of particular
works may engender a certain _set of values or thoughts,_ is just as
natural as it would be unnatural for "works" to proceed from mere
valuations. Man must practise, _not_ how to strengthen feelings of
value, but how to strengthen action: first of all, one must be able
_to do something...._ Luther's Christian Dilettantism. Faith is an
asses' bridge. The background consists of a profound conviction on
the part of Luther and his peers, that they are enabled to accomplish
Christian "works," a personal fact, disguised under an extreme doubt
as to whether _all_ action is not sin and devil's work, so that the
worth of life depends upon isolated and highly-strained conditions of
_inactivity_ (prayer, effusion, etc.).--Ultimately, Luther would be
right: the instincts which are expressed by the whole bearing of the
reformers are the most brutal that exist. Only in _turning absolutely
away_ from themselves, and in becoming absorbed in the _opposite_ of
themselves, only by means of an _illusion_ ("faith") was existence
endurable to them.


193.

"What was to be done in order to believe?"--an absurd question. That
which is wrong with Christianity is, that it does none of the things
that Christ _commanded._

It is a mean life, but _seen_ through the eye of contempt.


194.

The entrance into the _real_ life--_a man saves his own life by living
the life of the multitude._


195.

Christianity has become something fundamentally different from what
its Founder wished it to be. It is the great _anti-pagan movement_ of
antiquity, formulated with the use of the life, teaching, and "words"
of the Founder of Christianity, but interpreted quite _arbitrarily,_
according to a scheme embodying _profoundly different needs_:
translated into the language of all the _subterranean religions_ then
existing.

It is the rise of Pessimism (whereas Jesus wished to bring the peace
and the happiness of the lambs): and moreover the Pessimism of the
weak, of the inferior, of the suffering, and of the oppressed.

Its mortal enemies are (1) _Power,_ whether in the form of character,
intellect, or taste, and "worldliness"; (2) the "good cheer" of
classical times, the noble levity and scepticism, hard pride, eccentric
dissipation, and cold frugality of the sage, Greek refinement in
manners, words, and form. Its mortal enemy is as much the _Roman_ as
the _Greek._

The attempt on the part of _anti-paganism_ to establish itself on
a philosophical basis, and to make its tenets possible: it shows a
taste for the ambiguous figures of antique culture, and above all for
Plato, who was, more than any other, an anti-Hellene and Semite in
instinct.... It also shows a taste for Stoicism, which is essentially
the work of Semites ("dignity" is regarded as severity, law; virtue
is held to be greatness, self-responsibility, authority, greatest
sovereignty over oneself--this is Semitic.) The Stoic is an Arabian
sheik wrapped in Greek togas and notions.


196.

Christianity only resumes the fight which had already been begun
against the _classical_ ideal and _noble_ religion.

As a matter of fact, the whole process of _transformation_ is only
an adaptation to the needs and to the level of intelligence of
_religious_ masses then existing:--those masses which believed in
Isis, Mithras, Dionysos, and the "great mother," and which demanded
the following things of a religion: (1) hopes of a beyond, (2) the
bloody phantasmagoria of animal sacrifice (the mystery), (3) holy
legend and the redeeming _deed,_ (4) asceticism, denial of the
world, superstitious "purification," (5) a hierarchy as a part of
the community. In short, Christianity everywhere fitted the already
prevailing and increasing _anti-pagan tendency_--those cults which
Epicurus combated,--or more exactly, those _religions proper to the
lower herd, women, slaves, and ignoble classes._

The misunderstandings are therefore the following:--

(1) The immortality of the individual;

(2) The assumed existence of _another_ world;

(3) The absurd notion of punishment and expiation in the heart of the
interpretation of existence;

(4) The profanation of the divine nature of man, instead of its
accentuation, and the construction of a very profound chasm, which
can only be crossed by the help of a miracle or by means of the most
thorough self-contempt;

(5) The whole world of corrupted imagination and morbid passion,
instead of a simple and loving life of action, instead of Buddhistic
happiness attainable on earth;

(6) An ecclesiastical order with a priesthood, theology, cults, and
sacraments; in short, everything that Jesus of Nazareth _combated_;

(7) The _miraculous_ in everything and everybody, superstition too:
while precisely the trait which distinguished Judaism and primitive
Christianity was their _repugnance to_ miracles and their relative
_rationalism._


197.

_The psychological pre-requisites:--Ignorance_ and _lack of
culture,_--the sort of ignorance which has unlearned every kind of
shame: let any one imagine those impudent saints in the heart of
Athens;

The _Jewish instinct of a chosen people_: they appropriate _all the
virtues,_ without further ado, as their own, and regard the rest of
the world as their opposite; this is a profound sign of _spiritual
depravity_;

_The total lack of real aims_ and real _duties,_ for which other
virtues are required than those of the bigot--_the State undertook
this work for them_: and the impudent people still behaved as though
they had no need of the State. "Except ye become as little children"
--oh, how far we are from this psychological ingenuousness!


198.

The Founder of Christianity had to pay dearly for having directed His
teaching at the lowest classes of Jewish society and intelligence. They
understood Him only according to the limitations of their own spirit.
... It was a disgrace to concoct a history of salvation, a personal
God, a personal Saviour, a personal immortality, and to have retained
all the meanness of the "person," and of the "history" of a doctrine
which denies the reality of all that is personal and historical.

The legend of salvation takes the place of the symbolic "now" and "all
time," of the symbolic "here" and "everywhere"; and miracles appear
instead of the psychological symbol.


199.

Nothing is less innocent than the New Testament. The soil from which it
sprang is known.

These people, possessed of an inflexible will to assert themselves, and
who, once they had lost all natural hold on life, and had long existed
without any right to existence, still knew how to prevail by means of
hypotheses which were as unnatural as they were imaginary (calling
themselves the chosen people, the community of saints, the people of
the promised land, and the "Church"): these people made use of their
_pia fraus_ with such skill, and with such "clean consciences," that
one cannot be too cautious when they preach morality. When Jews step
forward as the personification of innocence, the danger must be great.
While reading the New Testament a man should have his small fund of
intelligence, mistrust, and wickedness constantly at hand.

People of the lowest origin, partly mob, outcasts not only from good
society, but also from respectable society; grown away from the
_atmosphere_ of culture, and free from discipline; ignorant, without
even a suspicion of the fact that conscience can also rule in spiritual
matters; in a word--the Jews: an instinctively crafty people, able to
create an advantage, a means of _seduction_ out of every conceivable
hypothesis of superstition, even out of ignorance itself.


200.

I regard Christianity as the most fatal and seductive lie that has ever
yet existed--as the greatest and most _impious lie_: I can discern the
last sprouts and branches of its ideal beneath every form of disguise,
I decline to enter into any compromise or false position in reference
to it--I urge people to declare open war with it.

The _morality of paltry people_ as the measure of all things: this is
the most repugnant kind of degeneracy that civilisation has ever yet
brought into existence. And this _kind of ideal_ is hanging still,
under the name of "God," over men's heads!!


201.

However modest one's demands may be concerning intellectual
cleanliness, when one touches the New Testament one cannot help
experiencing a sort of inexpressible feeling of discomfort; for the
unbounded cheek with which the least qualified people will have their
say in its pages, in regard to the greatest problems of existence,
and claim to sit in judgment on such matters, exceeds all limits. The
impudent levity with which the most unwieldy problems are spoken of
here (life, the world, God, the purpose of life), as if they were not
problems at all, but the most simple things which these little bigots
_know all about_!!!


202.

This was the most fatal form of insanity that has ever yet existed on
earth:--when these little lying abortions of bigotry begin laying claim
to the words "God," "last judgment," "truth," "love," "wisdom," "Holy
Spirit," and thereby distinguishing themselves from the rest of the
world; when such men begin to transvalue values to suit themselves, as
though they were the sense, the salt, the standard, and the measure of
all things; then all that one should do is this: build lunatic asylums
for their incarceration. To _persecute_ them was an egregious act of
antique folly: this was taking them too seriously; it was making them
serious.

The whole fatality was made possible by the fact that a similar form
of megalomania was already _in existence,_ the _Jewish_ form (once
the gulf separating the Jews from the Christian-Jews was bridged, the
Christian-Jews _were compelled_ to employ those self-preservative
measures afresh which were discovered by the Jewish instinct, for
their own self-preservation, after having accentuated them); and again
through the fact that Greek moral philosophy had done everything that
could be done to prepare the way for moral-fanaticism, even among
Greeks and Romans, and to render it palatable.... Plato, the great
importer of corruption, who was the first who refused to see Nature
in morality, and who had already deprived the Greek gods of all their
worth by his notion "_good_" was already tainted with _Jewish bigotry_
(in Egypt?).


203.

These small virtues of gregarious animals do not by any means lead
to "eternal life": to put them on the stage in such a way, and to
use them for one's own purpose is perhaps very smart; but to him who
keeps his eyes open, even here, it remains, in spite of all, the most
ludicrous performance. A man by no means deserves privileges, either on
earth or in heaven, because he happens to have attained to perfection
in the art of behaving like a good-natured little sheep; at best, he
only remains a dear, absurd little ram with horns--provided, of course,
he does not burst with vanity or excite indignation by assuming the
airs of a supreme judge.

What a terrible glow of false colouring here floods the meanest
virtues--as though they were the reflection of divine qualities!

The _natural_ purpose and utility of every virtue is systematically
_hushed up_; it can only be valuable in the light of a _divine_ command
or model, or in the light of the good which belongs to a beyond or a
spiritual world. (This is magnificent!--As if it were a question of the
_salvation of the soul_: but it was a means of making things bearable
here with as many beautiful sentiments as possible.)


204.

The _law,_ which is the fundamentally realistic formula of certain
self-preservative measures of a community, forbids certain actions
that have a definite tendency to jeopardise the welfare of that
community: it does _not_ forbid the attitude of mind which gives rise
to these actions--for in the pursuit of other ends the community
requires these forbidden actions, namely, when it is a matter of
opposing its _enemies._ The moral idealist now steps forward and says:
"God sees into men's hearts: the action itself counts for nothing;
the reprehensible attitude of mind from which it proceeds must be
extirpated ..." In normal conditions men laugh at such things; it is
only in exceptional cases, when a community lives _quite_ beyond the
need of waging war in order to maintain itself, that an ear is lent to
such things. Any attitude of mind is abandoned, the utility of which
cannot be conceived.

This was the case, for example, when Buddha appeared among a people
that was both peaceable and afflicted with great intellectual weariness.

This was also the case in regard to the first Christian community (as
also the Jewish), the primary condition of which was the absolutely
_unpolitical_ Jewish society. Christianity could grow only upon the
soil of Judaism--that is to say, among a people that had already
renounced the political life, and which led a sort of parasitic
existence within the Roman sphere of government, Christianity goes a
step _farther_: it allows men to "emasculate" themselves even more; the
circumstances actually favour their doing so.--_Nature_ is _expelled_
from morality when it is said, "Love ye your enemies": for _Nature's_
injunction, "Ye shall _love_ your neighbour and _hate_ your enemy,"
has now become senseless in the law (in instinct); now, even _the love
a man feels for his neighbour_ must first be based upon something (_a
sort of love of God_). _God_ is introduced everywhere, and _utility_
is withdrawn; the natural _origin_ of morality is denied everywhere:
the _veneration of Nature,_ which lies in _acknowledging a natural
morality,_ is _destroyed_ to the roots....

Whence comes the _seductive charm_ of this emasculate ideal of man? Why
are we not _disgusted_ by it, just as we are disgusted at the thought
of a eunuch?... The answer is obvious: it is not the voice of the
eunuch that revolts us, despite the cruel mutilation of which it is the
result; for, as a matter of fact, it has grown sweeter.... And owing to
the very fact that the "male organ" has been amputated from virtue, its
voice now has a feminine ring, which, formerly, was not to be discerned.

On the other hand, we have only to think of the terrible hardness,
dangers, and accidents to which a life of manly virtues leads--the
life of a Corsican, even at the present day, or that of a heathen Arab
(which resembles the Corsican's life even to the smallest detail:
the Arab's songs might have been written by Corsicans)--in order to
perceive how the most robust type of man was fascinated and moved by
the voluptuous ring of this "goodness" and "purity." ... A pastoral
melody ... an idyll ... the "good man": such things have most effect in
ages when tragedy is abroad.

***

With this, we have realised to what extent the "idealist" (the ideal
eunuch) also proceeds from a definite reality and is not merely a
visionary.... He has perceived precisely that, for his kind of reality,
a brutal injunction of the sort which prohibits certain actions has no
sense (because the instinct which would urge him to these actions is
_weakened,_ thanks to a long need of practice, and of compulsion to
practise). The castrator formulates a host of new self-preservative
measures for a perfectly definite species of men: in this sense he is
a realist. The _means_ to which he has recourse for establishing his
legislation, are the same as those of ancient legislators: he appeals
to all authorities, to "God," and he exploits the notions "guilt and
punishment"--that is to say, he avails himself of the whole of the
older ideal, but interprets it differently; for instance: punishment is
given a place in the inner self (it is called the pang of conscience).

In practice this kind of man _meets with his end_ the moment the
exceptional conditions favouring his existence cease to prevail--a sort
of insular happiness, like that of Tahiti, and of the little Jews in
the Roman provinces. Their only _natural_ foe is the soil from which
they spring: they must wage war against that, and once more give their
_offensive_ and _defensive_ passions rope in order to be equal to
it: their opponents are the adherents of the old ideal (this kind of
hostility is shown on a grand scale by Paul in relation to Judaism, and
by Luther in relation to the priestly ascetic ideal). The mildest form
of this antagonism is certainly that of the first Buddhists; perhaps
nothing has given rise to so much work, as the enfeeblement and
discouragement of the feeling of _antagonism._ The struggle against
resentment almost seems the Buddhist's first duty; thus only is his
_peace_ of soul secured. To isolate oneself without bitterness, this
presupposes the existence of a surprisingly mild and sweet order of
men,--saints....

***

The _Astuteness of moral castration._--How is war waged against
the virile passions and valuations? No violent physical means are
available; the war must therefore be one of ruses, spells, and lies--in
short, a "spiritual war."

First recipe: One appropriates virtue in general, and makes it the main
feature of one's ideal; the older ideal is denied and declared to be
_the reverse of all ideals._ Slander has to be carried to a fine art
for this purpose.

Second recipe: A type of man is set up as a general _standard_; and
this is projected into all things, behind all things, and behind the
destiny of all things--as God.

Third recipe: The opponents of one's ideal are declared to be the
opponents of God; one arrogates to oneself a _right_ to great pathos,
to power, and a right to curse and to bless.

Fourth recipe: All suffering, all gruesome, terrible, and fatal things
are declared to be the results of opposition to _ones_ ideal--all
suffering is _punishment_ even in the case of one's adherents (except
it be a trial, etc.).

Fifth recipe: One goes so far as to regard Nature as the reverse of
one's ideal, and the lengthy sojourn amid natural conditions is
considered a great trial of patience--a sort of martyrdom; one studies
contempt, both in one's attitudes and one's looks towards all "natural
things."

Sixth recipe: The triumph of anti-naturalism and ideal castration,
the triumph of the world of the pure, good, sinless, and blessed, is
projected into the future as the consummation, the finale, the great
hope, and the "Coming of the Kingdom of God."

I hope that one may still be allowed to _laugh_ at this artificial
hoisting up of a small species of man to the position of an absolute
standard of all things?


205.

What I do not at all like in Jesus of Nazareth and His Apostle Paul,
is that they _stuffed so much into the heads of paltry people,_ as
if their modest virtues were worth so much ado. We have had to pay
dearly for it all; for they brought the most valuable qualities of both
virtue and man into ill repute; they set the guilty conscience and the
self-respect of noble souls at loggerheads, and they led the _braver,
more magnanimous, more daring, and more excessive_ tendencies of strong
souls astray--even to self-destruction.


206.

In the New Testament, and especially in the Gospels, I discern
absolutely no sign of a "_Divine_" voice: but rather an _indirect
form_ of the most subterranean fury, both in slander and
destructiveness--one of the most dishonest forms of hatred. It lacks
_all_ knowledge of the qualities of a _higher nature._ It makes an
impudent abuse of all kinds of plausibilities, and the whole stock of
proverbs is used up and foisted upon one in its pages. Was it necessary
to make a _God_ come in order to appeal to those publicans and to say
to them, etc. etc.?

Nothing could be more vulgar than this struggle with the _Pharisees,_
carried on with a host of absurd and unpractical moral pretences; the
mob, of course, has always been entertained by such feats. Fancy the
reproach of "hypocrisy!" coming from those lips! Nothing could be more
vulgar than this treatment of one's opponents--a most insidious sign of
nobility or its _reverse...._


207.

Primitive Christianity is the _abolition_ of the _State_: it prohibits
oaths, military service, courts of justice, self-defence or the defence
of a community, and denies the difference between fellow-countrymen and
strangers, as also the _order of castes._

_Christs example_; He does not withstand those who ill-treat Him; He
does not defend Himself; He does more, He "offers the left cheek"
(to the demand: "Tell us whether thou be the Christ?" He replies:
"Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven"). He forbids His disciples
to defend Him; He calls attention to the fact that He could get help
if He wished to, but _will_ not.

Christianity also means the _abolition of society,_ it prizes
everything that society despises, its very growth takes place among the
outcasts, the condemned, and the leprous of all kinds, as also among
"publicans," "sinners," prostitutes, and the most foolish of men (the
"fisher folk "); it despises the rich, the scholarly, the noble, the
virtuous, and the "punctilious." ...


208.

The war against the noble and the powerful, as it is waged in the New
Testament, is reminiscent of Reynard the Fox and his methods: but
_plus_ the Christian unction and the more absolute refusal to recognise
one's own craftiness.


209.

The Gospel is the announcement that the road to happiness lies open for
the lowly and the poor--that all one has to do is to emancipate one's
self from all institutions, traditions, and the tutelage of the higher
classes. Thus Christianity is no more than the _typical teaching of
Socialists._

Property, acquisitions, mother-country, status and rank, tribunals,
the police, the State, the Church, Education, Art, militarism: all
these are so many obstacles in the way of happiness, so many mistakes,
snares, and devil's artifices, on which the Gospel passes sentence--all
this is typical of socialistic doctrines.

Behind all this there is the outburst, the explosion, of a
concentrated loathing of the "masters,"--the instinct which discerns
the happiness of freedom after such long oppression.... (Mostly a
symptom of the fact that the inferior classes have been treated too
humanely, that their tongues already taste a joy which is forbidden
them.... It is not hunger that provokes revolutions, but the fact that
the mob have contracted an appetite _en mangeant...._)


210.

Let the _New Testament only be read as a book of seduction_: in it
virtue is appropriated, with the idea that public opinion is best
won with it,--and as a matter of fact it is a very modest kind of
_virtue,_ which recognises only the ideal gregarious animal and nothing
more (including, of course, the herdsmen): a puny, soft, benevolent,
helpful, and gushingly-satisfied kind of virtue which to the outside
world is quite devoid of pretensions,--and which separates the "world"
entirely from itself. The _crassest arrogance_ which fancies that the
destiny of man turns around it, and it alone, and that on the one side
the community of believers represents what is right, and on the other
the world represents what is false and eternally to be reproved and
rejected. The most _imbecile hatred_ of all things in power, which,
however, never goes so far as to touch these things. A kind of _inner
detachment_ which, outwardly, leaves everything as it was (servitude
and slavery; and knowing how to convert _everything_ into a means of
serving God and virtue).


211.

Christianity is possible as the _most private_ form of life; it
presupposes the existence of a narrow, isolated, and absolutely
unpolitical society--it belongs to the conventicle. On the other hand,
a "Christian _State_," "Christian politics," are pieces of downright
impudence; they are lies, like, for instance, a Christian leadership
of an army, which in the end regards "the God of hosts" as chief of
the staff. Even the Papacy has never been able to carry on politics
in a Christian way...; and when Reformers indulge in politics, as
Luther did, it is well known that they are just as ardent followers of
Machiavelli as any other immoralists or tyrants.


212.

Christianity is still possible at any moment. It is not bound to any
one of the impudent dogmas that have adorned themselves with its name:
it needs neither the teaching of the _personal God,_ nor of _sin,_
nor of _immortality,_ nor of _redemption,_ nor of _faith_; it has
absolutely no need whatever of metaphysics, and it needs asceticism and
Christian "natural science" still less. Christianity is a _method of
life,_ not a system of belief. It tells us how we should behave, not
what we should believe.

He who says to-day: "I refuse to be a soldier," "I care not for
tribunals," "I lay no claim to the services of the police," "I will
not do anything that disturbs the peace within me: and if I must
suffer on that account, nothing can so well maintain my inward peace as
suffering"--such a man would be a Christian.


213.

_Concerning the history of Christianity._--Continual change of
environment: Christian teaching is thus continually changing its
_centre of gravity._ The favouring of _low_ and _paltry_ people....
The development of _Caritas...._ The type "Christian" gradually
adopts everything that it originally rejected (_and in the rejection
of which it asserted its right to exist_). The Christian becomes a
citizen, a soldier, a judge, a workman, a merchant, a scholar, a
theologian, a priest, a philosopher, a farmer, an artist, a patriot,
a politician, a prince ... he re-enters all those _departments of
active life_ which he had forsworn (he defends himself, he establishes
tribunals, he punishes, he swears, he differentiates between people
and people, he contemns, and he shows anger). The whole life of the
Christian is ultimately exactly that life _from which Christ preached
deliverance...._ The Church is just as much a factor in the _triumph_
of the Antichrist, as the modern State and modern Nationalism.... The
Church is the barbarisation of Christianity.


214.

Among the powers that have mastered _Christianity_ are: Judaism
(_Paul_); Platonism (Augustine); The cult of mystery (the teaching of
salvation, the emblem of the "cross"); Asceticism (hostility towards
"Nature," "Reason," the "senses,"--the Orient ...).


215.

Christianity is a denaturalisation of gregarious morality: under the
power of the most complete misapprehensions and self-deceptions.
Democracy is a more natural form of it, and less sown with falsehood.
It is a fact that the oppressed, the low, and whole mob of slaves and
half-castes, _will prevail._

First step: they make themselves free--they detach themselves, at
first in fancy only; they recognise each other; they make themselves
paramount.

Second step: they enter the lists, they demand acknowledgment, equal
rights, "Justice."

Third step: they demand privileges (they draw the representatives of
power over to their side).

Fourth step: they _alone_ want all power, and they _have_ it.

There are _three elements_ in Christianity which must be distinguished:
_(a)_ the oppressed of all kinds, _(b)_ the mediocre of all kinds,
_(c)_ the dissatisfied and diseased of all kinds. The _first_ struggle
against the politically noble and their ideal; the second contend with
the exceptions and those who are in any way privileged (mentally or
physically); the third oppose the _natural instinct_ of the happy and
the sound.

Whenever a triumph is achieved, the second element steps to the fore;
for then Christianity has won over the sound and happy to its side
(as warriors in its cause), likewise the powerful (interested to this
extent in the conquest of the crowd)--and now it is the _gregarious
instinct,_ that _mediocre nature_ which is valuable in every respect,
that now gets its highest sanction through Christianity. This mediocre
nature ultimately becomes so conscious of itself (gains such courage
in regard to its own opinions), that it arrogates to itself even
_political power_....

Democracy is Christianity _made natural_: a sort of "return to Nature,"
once Christianity, owing to extreme anti-naturalness, might have been
overcome by the opposite valuation. Result: the aristocratic ideal
begins to _lose its natural character_ ("the higher man," "noble,"
"artist," "passion," "knowledge"; Romanticism as the cult of the
exceptional, genius, etc. etc.).


216.

_When the "masters" may also become Christians._--It is of the nature
of a _community_ (race, family, herd, tribe) to regard all those
conditions and aspirations which favour its survival, as in themselves
_valuable_; for instance: obedience, mutual assistance, respect,
moderation, pity--as also, to _suppress_ everything that happens to
stand in the way of the above.

It is likewise of the nature of the _rulers_ (whether they are
individuals or classes) to patronise and applaud those virtues which
make their subjects _amenable_ and _submissive_--conditions and
passions which may be utterly different from their own.

The _gregarious instinct_ and the _instinct of the rulers_ sometimes
_agree_ in approving of a certain number of qualities and
conditions,--but for different reasons: the first do so out of direct
egoism, the second out of indirect egoism.

_The submission to Christianity on the part of master races_ is
essentially the result of the conviction that Christianity is a
_religion for the herd,_ that it teaches obedience: in short, that
Christians are more easily ruled than non-Christians. With a hint of
this nature, the Pope, even nowadays, recommends Christian propaganda
to the ruling Sovereign of China.

It should also be added that the seductive power of the Christian ideal
works most strongly upon natures that love danger, adventure, and
contrasts; that love everything _that entails a risk,_ and wherewith a
_non plus ultra_ of powerful feeling may be attained. In this respect,
one has only to think of Saint Theresa, surrounded by the heroic
instincts of her brothers:--Christianity appears in those circumstances
as a dissipation of the will, as strength of will, as a will that is
Quixotic.



3. CHRISTIAN IDEALS.


217.

War against the _Christian ideal,_ against the doctrine of
"blessedness" and "salvation" as the aims of life, against the
supremacy of the fools, of the pure in heart, of the suffering and of
the botched!

When and where has any man, _of any note at all,_ resembled the
Christian ideal?--at least in the eyes of those who are psychologists
and triers of the heart and reins. Look at all Plutarch's heroes!


218.

_Our claim to superiority_: we live in an age of _Comparisons_; we
are able to calculate as men have never yet calculated; in every way
we are history become self-conscious. We enjoy things in a different
way; we suffer in a different way: our instinctive activity is the
comparison of an enormous variety of things. We understand everything;
we experience everything, we no longer have a hostile feeling left
within us. However disastrous the results may be to ourselves, our
plunging and almost lustful inquisitiveness, attacks, unabashed, the
most dangerous of subjects....

"Everything is good"--it gives us pain to say "nay" to anything. We
suffer when we feel that we are sufficiently foolish to make a definite
stand against anything.... At bottom, it is we scholars who to-day are
fulfilling Christ's teaching most thoroughly.


219.

We cannot suppress a certain irony when we contemplate those who think
they have overcome Christianity by means of modern natural science.
Christian values are by no means overcome by such people. "Christ on
the cross" is still the most sublime symbol--even now....


220.

The two great Nihilistic movements are: _(a)_ Buddhism, _(b)_
Christianity. The latter has only just about reached a state of
culture in which it can fulfil its original object,--it has found its
_level,_--and now it can manifest itself _without disguise_.....


221.

We have _re-established_ the Christian ideal, it now only remains _to
determine_ its value.

(1) Which values does it _deny_? What does _the ideal that opposes it_
stand for?--Pride, pathos of distance, great responsibility, exuberant
spirits, splendid animalism, the instincts of war and of conquest;
the deification of passion, revenge, cunning, anger, voluptuousness,
adventure, knowledge--the _noble ideal_ is denied: the beauty, wisdom,
power, pomp, and awfulness of the type man: the man who postulates
aims, the "future" man (here Christianity presents itself as the
_logical result_ of _Judaism_).

(2) _Can it be realised?_--Yes, of course, when the climatic conditions
are favourable--as in the case of the Indian ideal. Both neglect the
factor _work._--It separates a creature from a people, a state, a
civilised community, and jurisdiction; it rejects education, wisdom,
the cultivation of good manners, acquisition and commerce; it cuts
adrift everything which is of use and value to men--by means of an
idiosyncrasy of sentiment it _isolates_ a man. It is non-political,
anti-national, neither aggressive nor defensive,--and only possible
within a strictly-ordered State or state of society, which allows these
_holy parasites_ to flourish at the cost of their neighbours.....

(3) It has now become the will to be _happy_--and nothing else!
"Blessedness" stands for something self-evident, that no longer
requires any justification--everything else (the way to live and let
live) is only a means to an end....

But what follows is the result of a _low order of thought,_ the fear of
pain, of defilement, of corruption, is great enough to provide ample
grounds for allowing everything to go to the dogs.... This is a _poor_
way of thinking, and is the sign of an exhausted race; we _must_ not
allow ourselves to be deceived. ("Become as little children." Natures
_of the same order_: Francis of Assisi, neurotic, epileptic, visionary,
like Jesus.)


222.

The _higher_ man distinguishes himself from the _lower_ by his
fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune: it is a
sign of _degeneration_ when eudemonistic values begin to prevail
(physiological fatigue and enfeeblement of will-power). Christianity,
with its prospect of "blessedness," is the typical attitude of mind of
a suffering and impoverished species of man. Abundant strength will be
active, will suffer, and will go under: to it the bigotry of Christian
salvation is bad music and hieratic posing and vexation.


223.

_Poverty, humility, and chastity_ are dangerous and slanderous ideals;
but like poisons, which are useful cures in the case of certain
diseases, they were also necessary in the time of the Roman Empire.

All ideals are dangerous: because they lower and brand realities; they
are all poisons, but occasionally indispensable as cures.


224.

God created man, happy, idle, innocent, and immortal: our actual life
is a false, decadent, and sinful existence, a punishment.... Suffering,
struggle, work, and death are raised as objections against life, they
make life questionable, unnatural--something that must cease, and for
which one not only requires but also _has_--remedies!

Since the time of Adam, man has been in an abnormal state: God
Himself delivered up His Son for Adam's sin, in order to put an end
to the abnormal condition of things: the natural character of life
is a _curse_; to those who believe in Him, Christ restores normal
life: He makes them happy, idle, and innocent. But the world did not
become fruitful without labour; women do not bear children without
pain; illness has not ceased: believers are served just as badly as
unbelievers in this respect. All that has happened is, that man is
delivered from _death_ and _sin--_two assertions which allow of no
verification, and which are therefore emphasised by the Church with
more than usual heartiness. "He is free from sin,"--not owing to
his own efforts, not owing to a vigorous struggle on his part, but
_redeemed by the death of the Saviour,_--consequently, perfectly
innocent and paradisaical.

_Actual_ life is nothing more than an illusion (that is to say, a
deception, an insanity). The whole of struggling, fighting, and
real existence--so full of light and shade, is only bad and false:
everybody's duty is to be _delivered_ from it.

"Man, innocent, idle, immortal, and happy"--this concept, which is
the object of the "most supreme desires," must be criticised before
anything else. Why should guilt, work, death, and pain (_and,_ from
the Christian point of view, also _knowledge_ ...) be _contrary_ to
all supreme desires?--The lazy Christian notions: "blessedness,"
"innocence," "immortality."


225.

The eccentric concept "holiness" does not exist--"God" and "man" have
not been divorced from each other. "Miracles" do not exist--such
spheres do not exist: the only one to be considered is the
"intellectual" (that is to say, the symbolically-psychological). As
decadence: a counterpart to "Epicureanism." ... Paradise according to
Greek notions was only "Epicurus' Garden."

A life of this sort lacks a purpose: it _strives after_ nothing;--a
form of the "Epicurean gods"--there is no longer any reason to aim at
anything,--not even at having children:--everything has been done.


226.

They despised the body: they did not reckon with it: nay, more--they
treated it as an enemy. It was their delirium to think that a man
could carry a "beautiful soul" about in a body that was a cadaverous
abortion.... In order to inoculate others with this insanity they
had to present the concept "beautiful soul" in a different way, and
to transvalue the natural value, until, at last, a pale, sickly,
idiotically exalted creature, something angelic, some extreme
perfection and transfiguration was declared to be the higher man.


227.

Ignorance in matters psychological.--The Christian has no nervous
system;--contempt for, and deliberate and wilful turning away from, the
demands of the body, and the _naked_ body; it is assumed that all this
is in keeping with man's nature, and _must perforce work the ultimate
good of the soul_;--all functions of the body are systematically
reduced to moral values; illness itself is regarded as determined by
morality, it is held to be the result of sin, or it is a trial or a
state of salvation, through which man becomes more perfect than he
could become in a state of health (Pascal's idea); under certain
circumstances, there are wilful attempts at inducing illness.


228.

What in sooth is this struggle "against Nature" on the part of the
Christian? We shall not, of course, let ourselves be deceived by
his words and explanations. It is Nature against something which is
also Nature. With many, it is fear; with others, it is loathing;
with yet others, it is the sign of a certain intellectuality, the
love of a bloodless and passionless ideal; and in the case of the
most superior men, it is love of an abstract Nature--these try to
live up to their ideal. It is easily understood that humiliation in
the place of self-esteem, anxious cautiousness towards the passions,
emancipation from the usual duties (whereby, a higher notion of rank is
created), the incitement to constant war on behalf of enormous issues,
habituation to effusiveness of feelings--all this goes to constitute
a type: in such a type the _hypersensitiveness_ of a perishing body
preponderates; but the nervousness and the inspirations it engenders
are _interpreted_ differently. The _taste_ of this kind of creature
tends either (1) to subtilise, (2) to indulge in bombastic eloquence,
or (3) to go in for extreme feelings. The natural inclinations _do_
get satisfied, but they are interpreted in a new way; for instance,
as "justification before God," "the feeling of redemption through
grace," every undeniable _feeling of pleasure_ becomes (interpreted
in this way!) pride, voluptuousness, etc. General problem: what will
become of the man who slanders and practically denies and belittles
what is natural? As a matter of fact, the Christian is an example of
exaggerated self-control: in order to tame his passions, he seems to
find it necessary to extirpate or crucify them.


229.

Man did not know himself physiologically throughout the ages his
history covers; he does not even know himself now. The knowledge, for
instance, that man has a nervous system (but no "soul") is still the
privilege of the most educated people. But man is not satisfied, in
this respect, to say he does not know. A man must be very superior to
be able to say: "I do not know this,"--that is to say, to be able to
admit his ignorance.

Suppose he is in pain or in a good mood, he never questions that he
can find the reason of either condition if only he seeks.... In truth,
he cannot find the reason; for he does not even suspect where it
lies.... What happens?... He takes the _result_ of his condition for
its _cause_; for instance, if he should undertake some work (really
undertaken because his good mood gave him the courage to do so) and
carry it through successfully: behold, the work itself is the _reason_
of his good mood.... As a matter of fact, his success was determined by
the same cause as that which brought about his good mood--that is to
say, the happy co-ordination of physiological powers and functions.

He feels bad: _consequently_ he cannot overcome a care, a scruple,
or an attitude of self-criticism.... He really fancies that his
disagreeable condition is the result of his scruple, of his "sin," or
of his "self-criticism."

But after profound exhaustion and prostration, a state of recovery sets
in. "How is it possible that I can feel so free, so happy? It is a
miracle; only a God could have effected this change."--Conclusion: "He
has forgiven my sin." ...

From this follow certain practices: in order to provoke feelings of
sinfulness and to prepare the way for crushed spirits it is necessary
to induce a condition of morbidity and nervousness in the body. The
methods of doing this are well known. Of course, nobody suspects
the causal logic of the fact: the _maceration_ of the _flesh_ is
interpreted religiously, it seems like an end in itself, whereas it
is no more than a _means_ of bringing about that morbid state of
indigestion which is known as repentance (the "fixed idea" of sin, the
hypnotising of the hen by-means of the chalk-line "sin").

The mishandling of the body prepares the ground for the required range
of "guilty feelings"--that is to say, for that general state of pain
which _demands an explanation...._

On the other hand, the _method_ of "salvation" may also develop
from the above: every dissipation of the feelings, whether prayers,
movements, attitudes, or oaths, has been provoked, and exhaustion
follows; very often it is acute, or it appears in the form of
epilepsy. And behind this condition of deep somnolence there come signs
of recovery--or, in religious parlance, "Salvation."


230.

Formerly, the conditions and results of _physiological exhaustion_ were
considered more important than healthy conditions and their results,
and this was owing to the suddenness, fearfulness, and mysteriousness
of the former. Men were terrified by themselves, and postulated the
existence of a _higher_ world. People have ascribed the origin of the
idea of two worlds--one this side of the grave and the other beyond
it--to sleep and dreams, to shadows, to night, and to the fear of
Nature: but the symptoms of physiological exhaustion should, above all,
have been considered.

Ancient religions have quite special methods of disciplining the
pious into states of exhaustion, in which they _must_ experience such
things.... The idea was, that one entered into a new order of things,
where everything ceases to be known.--The _semblance_ of a higher
power....

231.

Sleep is the result of every kind of exhaustion; exhaustion follows
upon all excessive excitement....

In all pessimistic religions and philosophies there is a yearning for
sleep; the very notion "sleep" is deified and worshipped.

In this case the exhaustion is racial; sleep regarded psychologically
is only a symbol of a much deeper and longer _compulsion to rest....
In praxi_ it is death which rules here in the seductive image of its
brother sleep....


232.

The whole of the Christian training in repentance and redemption may
be regarded as a _folie circulaire_ arbitrarily produced; though,
of course, it can be produced only in people who are predisposed to
it--that is to say, who have morbid tendencies in their constitutions.


233.

_Against remorse and its purely psychical treatment._--To be unable
to have done with an experience is already a sign of decadence.
This reopening of old wounds, this wallowing in self-contempt and
depression, is an additional form of disease; no "salvation of the
soul" ever results from it, but only a new kind of spiritual illness....

These "conditions of salvation" of which the Christian is conscious are
merely variations of the same diseased state--the interpretation of an
attack of epilepsy by means of a particular formula which is provided,
_not_ by science, but by religious mania.

When a man is ill his very _goodness_ is sickly.... By far the
greatest portion of the psychical apparatus which Christianity has
used, is now classed among the various forms of hysteria and epilepsy.

The whole process of spiritual healing must be remodelled on a
physiological basis: the "sting of conscience" as such is an obstacle
in the way of recovery--as soon as possible the attempt must be made
to counterbalance everything by means of new actions, so that there
may be an escape from the morbidness of _self-torture...._ The purely
psychical practices of the Church and of the various sects should be
decried as dangerous to the health. No invalid is ever cured by prayers
or by the exorcising of evil spirits: the states of "repose" which
follow upon such methods of treatment, by no means inspire confidence,
in the psychological sense....

A man is _healthy_ when he can laugh at the seriousness and ardour with
which he has allowed himself to be _hypnotised_ to any extent by any
detail in his life--when his remorse seems to him like the action of a
dog biting a stone--when he is ashamed of his repentance.

The purely psychological and religious practices, which have existed
hitherto, only led to an _alteration in the symptoms_: according to
them a man had recovered when he bowed before the cross, and swore
that in future he would be a good man.... But a criminal, who, with
a certain gloomy seriousness cleaves to his fate and refuses to
malign his deed once it is done, has more _spiritual health...._
The criminals with whom Dostoiewsky associated in prison, were all,
without exception, unbroken natures,--are they not a hundred times more
valuable than a "broken-spirited" Christian?

(For the treatment of pangs of conscience I recommend Mitchell's
Treatment.[2])


[Footnote 2: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--In _The New Sydenham Society's Lexicon
of Medicine and the Allied Sciences,_ the following description of
Mitchell's treatment is to be found: "A method of treating cases of
neurasthenia and hysteria ... by removal from home, rest in bed,
massage twice a day, electrical excitation of the muscles, and
excessive feeding, at first with milk."]


234.

A _pang of conscience_ in a man is a sign that his character is not
yet equal to his _deed._ There is such a thing as a pang of conscience
after _good deeds_: in this case it is their unfamiliarity, their
incompatibility with an old environment.


235.

_Against remorse._--I do not like this form of cowardice in regard to
one's own actions, one must not leave one's self in the lurch under
the pressure of sudden shame or distress. Extreme pride is much more
fitting here. What is the good of it all in the end! No deed gets
undone because it is regretted, no more than because it is "forgiven"
or "expiated." A man must be a theologian in order to believe in
a power that erases faults: we immoralists prefer to disbelieve
in "faults." We believe that all deeds, of what kind soever, are
identically the same at root; just as deeds which turn _against_ us
may be useful from an economical point of view, and even _generally
desirable._ In certain individual cases, we admit that we might well
have been _spared_ a given action; the circumstances alone predisposed
us in its favour. Which of us, if _favoured_ by circumstances, would
not already have committed every possible crime?... That is why one
should never say: "Thou shouldst never have done such and such a
thing," but only: "How strange it is that I have not done such and
such a thing hundreds of times already!"--As a matter of fact, only
a very small number of acts are _typical_ acts and real epitomes of
a personality, and seeing what a small number of people really are
personalities, a single act very rarely _characterises_ a man. Acts
are mostly dictated by circumstances; they are superficial or merely
reflex movements performed in response to a stimulus, long before the
depths of our beings are affected or consulted in the matter. A fit of
temper, a gesture, a blow with a knife: how little of the individual
resides in these acts!--A deed very often brings a sort of stupor or
feeling of constraint in its wake: so that the agent feels almost
spellbound at its recollection, or as though he _belonged to it,_
and were not an independent creature. This mental disorder, which is
a form of hypnotism, must be resisted at all costs: surely a single
deed, whatever it be, when it is compared with all one has done, is
_nothing,_ and may be deducted from the sum without making the account
wrong. The unfair interest which society manifests in controlling the
whole of our lives in one direction, as though the very purpose of its
existence were to cultivate a certain individual act, should not infect
the man of action: but unfortunately this happens almost continually.
The reason of this is, that every deed, if followed by unexpected
consequences, leads to a certain mental disturbance, no matter whether
the consequences be good or bad. Behold a lover who has been given a
promise, or a poet while he is receiving applause from an audience:
as far as _intellectual torpor_ is concerned, these men are in no way
different from the anarchist who is suddenly confronted by a detective
bearing a search warrant.

There are some acts which are _unworthy_ of us: acts which, if they
were regarded as typical, would set us down as belonging to a lower
class of man. The one fault that has to be avoided here, is to regard
them as typical. There is another kind of act of which _we_ are
unworthy: exceptional acts, born of a particular abundance of happiness
and health; they are the highest waves of our spring tides, driven to
an unusual height by a storm--an accident: such acts and "deeds" are
also not typical. An artist should never be judged according to the
measure of his works.


236.

A. In proportion as Christianity seems necessary to-day, man is still
wild and fatal....

B. In another sense, it is not necessary, but extremely dangerous,
though it is captivating and seductive, because it corresponds with
the _morbid_ character of whole classes and types of modern humanity,
... they simply follow their inclinations when they aspire to
Christianity--they are decadents of all kinds.

A and B must be kept very sharply apart. In the _case of A,_
Christianity is a cure, or at least a taming process (under certain
circumstances it serves the purpose of making people ill: and this is
sometimes useful as a means of subduing savage and brutal natures).
In the _case of B,_ it is a symptom of illness itself, it renders the
state of decadence _more acute_; in this case it stands opposed to
a _corroborating_ system of treatment, it is the invalid's instinct
standing _against_ that which would be most salutary to him.


237.

On one side there are the _serious,_ the _dignified,_ and _reflective_
people: and on the other the barbarous, the unclean, and the
irresponsible beasts: it is merely a question of _taming animals_--and
in this case the tamer must be hard, terrible, and awe-inspiring, at
least to his beasts.

All essential requirements must be imposed upon the unruly creatures
with almost brutal distinctness--that is to say, magnified a thousand
times.

Even the fulfilment of the requirement must be presented in the
coarsest way possible, so that it may command respect, as in the case
of the spiritualisation of the Brahmins. _The struggle with the rabble
and the herd._ If any degree of tameness and order has been reached,
the chasm separating these _purified_ and _regenerated_ people from the
terrible _remainder_ must have been bridged....

This chasm is a means of increasing self-respect in higher castes,
and of confirming their belief in _that_ which they represent--hence
the _Chandala._ Contempt and its excess are perfectly correct
psychologically--that is to say, magnified a hundred times, so that it
may at least be felt.


238.

The struggle against _brutal_ instincts is quite different from
the struggle against _morbid_ instincts; it may even be a means
of overcoming brutality by making the brutes _ill._ The psychical
treatment practised by Christianity is often nothing more than the
process of converting a brute into a sick and _therefore_ tame animal.

The struggle against raw and savage natures must be a struggle with
weapons which are able to affect such natures: _superstitions_ and such
means are therefore indispensable and essential.

239.

Our age, in a certain sense, is _mature_ (that is to say, decadent),
just as Buddha's was.... That is why a sort of Christianity is possible
without all the absurd dogmas (the most repulsive offshoots of ancient
hybridism).


240.

Supposing it were impossible to disprove Christianity, Pascal thinks,
in view of the _terrible_ possibility that it may be true, that it is
in the highest degree prudent to be a Christian. As a proof of how
much Christianity has lost of its terrible nature, to-day we find that
other attempt to justify it, which consists in asserting, that even if
it were a mistake, it nevertheless provides the greatest advantages
and pleasures for its adherents throughout their lives:--it therefore
seems that this belief should be upheld owing to the peace and quiet
it ensures--not owing to the terror of a threatening possibility, but
rather out of fear of a life that has lost its charm. This hedonistic
turn of thought, which uses happiness as a proof, is a symptom of
decline: it takes the place of the proof resulting from power or from
that which to the Christian mind is most terrible--namely, _fear._ With
this new interpretation, Christianity is, as a matter of fact, nearing
its stage of exhaustion. People are satisfied with a Christianity which
is an _opiate,_ because they no longer have the strength to seek, to
struggle, to dare, to stand alone, nor to take up Pascal's position and
to share that gloomily brooding self-contempt, that belief in human
unworthiness, and that anxiety which believes that it "may be damned."
But a Christianity the chief object of which is to soothe diseased
nerves, does _not require_ the terrible solution consisting of a "God
on the cross"; that is why Buddhism is secretly gaining ground all
over Europe.


241.

The humour of European culture: people regard one thing as true, but do
_the other._ For instance, what is the use of all the art of reading
and criticising, if the ecclesiastical interpretation of the Bible,
whether according to Catholics or Protestants, is still upheld!


242.

No one is sufficiently aware of the barbarity of the notions among
which we Europeans still live. To think that men have been able to
believe that the "Salvation of the soul" depended upon a book!... And I
am told that this is still believed.

What is the good of all scientific education, all criticism and all
hermeneutics, if such nonsense as the Church's interpretation of the
Bible has not yet turned the colours of our bodies permanently into the
red of shame?


243.

_Subject for reflection_: To what extent does the fatal belief in
"Divine Providence"--the most _paralysing_ belief for both the hand
and the understanding that has ever existed--continue to prevail;
to what extent have the Christian hypothesis and interpretation of
Life continued their lives under the cover of terms like "Nature,"
"Progress," "perfectionment," "Darwinism," or beneath the superstition
that there is a certain relation between happiness and virtue,
unhappiness and sin? That absurd _belief_ in the course of things, in
"Life" and in the "instinct of Life"; that foolish _resignation_ which
arises from the notion that if only every one did his duty _all_ would
go well--all this sort of thing can only have a meaning if one assumes
that there is a direction of things _sub specie boni._ Even _fatalism,_
our present form of philosophical sensibility, is the result of a
_long_ belief in Divine Providence, an unconscious result: as though it
were nothing to do with us how everything goes! (As though we _might_
let things take their own course; the individual being only a _modus_
of the absolute reality.)


244.

It is the height of psychological falsity on the part of man to imagine
a being according to his own petty standard, who is a beginning, a
"thing-in-itself," and who appears to him good, wise, mighty, and
precious; for thus he suppresses in thoughts _all the causality_
by means of which every kind of goodness, wisdom, and power comes
into existence and has value. In short, elements of the most recent
and most conditional origin were regarded not as evolved, but as
spontaneously generated and "things-in-themselves," and perhaps as
the cause of all things.... Experience teaches us that, in every case
in which a man has means elevated the interests of the species above
those of the individual. Its real _historical_ effect, its fatal
effect, remains precisely the _increase of egotism,_ of individual
egotism, to excess (to the extreme which consists in the belief in
individual immortality). The individual was made so important and so
absolute, by means of Christian values, that he could no longer be
_sacrificed,_ despite the fact that the species can only be maintained
by human sacrifices. All "souls" became _equal_ before God: but this
is the most pernicious of all valuations! If one regards individuals
as equals, the demands of the species are ignored, and a process is
initiated which ultimately leads to its ruin. Christianity is the
_reverse of the_ principle of _selection._ If the degenerate and sick
man ("the Christian") is to be of the same value as the healthy man
("the pagan"), or if he is even to be valued higher than the latter,
as Pascal's view of health and sickness would have us value him, the
natural course of evolution is thwarted and the _unnatural_ becomes
law.... In practice this general love of mankind is nothing more
than deliberately favouring all the suffering, the botched, and the
degenerate: it is this love that has reduced and weakened the power,
responsibility, and lofty duty of sacrificing men. According to the
scheme of Christian values, all that remained was the alternative
of self-sacrifice, but this _vestige_ of human sacrifice, which
Christianity conceded and even recommended, has no meaning when
regarded in the light of rearing a whole species. The prosperity of the
species is by no means affected by the sacrifice of one individual
(whether in the monastic and ascetic manner, or by means of crosses,
stakes, and scaffolds, as the "martyrs" of error). What the species
requires is the suppression of the physiologically botched, the
weak and the degenerate: but it was precisely to these people that
Christianity appealed as a _preservative_ force, it simply strengthened
that natural and very strong instinct of all the weak which bids them
protect, maintain, and mutually support each other. What is Christian
"virtue" and "love of men," if not precisely this mutual assistance
with a view to survival, this solidarity of the weak, this thwarting of
selection? What is Christian altruism, if it is not the mob-egotism of
the weak which divines that, if everybody looks after everybody else,
every individual will be preserved for a longer period of time?... He
who does not consider this attitude of mind as _immoral,_ as a crime
against life, himself belongs to the sickly crowd, and also shares
their instincts.... Genuine love of mankind exacts sacrifice for
the good of the species--it is hard, full of self-control, because
it needs human sacrifices. And this pseudo-humanity which is called
Christianity, would fain establish the rule that nobody should be
sacrificed.


247.

Nothing could be more useful and deserves more promotion than
systematic _Nihilism in action._--As I understand the phenomena of
Christianity and pessimism, this is what they say: "We are ripe for
nonentity, for us it is reasonable not to be." This hint from "reason"
in this case, is simply the voice of _selective Nature._

On the other hand, what deserves the most rigorous condemnation, is
the ambiguous and cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like
_Christianity,_--or rather like the _Church,_--which, instead of
recommending death and self-destruction, actually protects all the
botched and bungled, and encourages them to propagate their kind.

Problem: with what kind of means could one lead up to a severe form of
really contagious Nihilism--a Nihilism which would teach and practise
voluntary death with scientific conscientiousness (and not the feeble
continuation of a vegetative sort of life with false hopes of a life
after death)?

Christianity cannot be sufficiently condemned for having depreciated
the _value_ of a great _cleansing_ Nihilistic movement (like the one
which was probably in the process of formation), by its teaching of
the immortality of the private individual, as also by the hopes of
resurrection which it held out: that is to say, by dissuading people
from performing the _deed of Nihilism_ which is suicide.... In the
latter's place it puts lingering suicide, and gradually a puny, meagre,
but durable life; gradually a perfectly ordinary, bourgeois, mediocre
life, etc.


248.

_Christian moral quackery._--Pity and contempt succeed each other at
short intervals, and at the sight of them I feel as indignant as if I
were in the presence of the most despicable crime. Here error is made
a duty--a virtue, misapprehension has become a knack, the destructive
instinct is systematised under the name of "redemption"; here every
operation becomes a wound, an amputation of those very organs whose
energy would be the prerequisite to a return of health. And in the
best of cases no cure is effected; all that is done is to exchange one
set of evil symptoms for another set.... And this pernicious nonsense,
this systematised profanation and castration of life, passes for
holy and sacred; to be in its service, to be an instrument of this
art of healing--that is to say, to be a priest, is to be rendered
distinguished, reverent, holy, and sacred. God alone could have been
the Author of this supreme art of healing; redemption is only possible
as a revelation, as an act of grace, as an unearned gift, made by the
Creator Himself.

Proposition I.: Spiritual healthiness is regarded as morbid, and
creates suspicion....

Proposition II.: The prerequisites of a strong, exuberant life--strong
desires and passions--are reckoned as objections against strong and
exuberant life.

Proposition III.: Everything which threatens danger to man, and which
can overcome and ruin him, is evil--and should be torn root and branch
from his soul.

Proposition IV.: Man converted into a weak creature, inoffensive to
himself and others, crushed by humility and modesty, and conscious of
his weakness,--in fact, the "sinner,"--this is the desirable type, and
one which one can _produce_ by means of a little spiritual surgery....


249.

What is it I protest against? That people should regard this paltry and
peaceful mediocrity, this spiritual equilibrium which knows nothing
of the fine impulses of great accumulations of strength, as something
high, or possibly as the standard of all things.

_Bacon of Verulam_ says: _Infimarum virtutum apud vulgus laus est,
mediarum admiratio, supremarum sensus nullus._ Christianity as a
religion, however, belongs to the _vulgus_: it has no feeling for the
highest kind of _virtus_.


250.

Let us see what the "genuine Christian" does of all the things which
his instincts forbid him to do:--he covers beauty, pride, riches,
self-reliance, brilliancy, knowledge, and power with suspicion and
_mud_--in short, _all culture_: his object is to deprive the latter of
its _clean conscience._


251.

The attacks made upon Christianity, hitherto, have been not only timid
but false. So long as Christian morality was not felt to be a _capital
crime against Life,_ its apologists had a good time. The question
concerning the mere "truth" of Christianity--whether in regard to the
existence of its God, or to the legendary history of its origin, not to
speak of its astronomy and natural science--is quite beside the point
so long as no inquiry is made into the value of Christian _morality._
Are Christian morals _worth anything,_ or are they a profanation and an
outrage, despite all the arts of holiness and seduction with which they
are enforced? The question concerning the truth of the religion may be
met by all sorts of subterfuges; and the most fervent believers can,
in the end, avail themselves of the logic used by their opponents, in
order to create a right for their side to assert that certain things
are irrefutable--that is to say, they _transcend_ the means employed
to refute them (nowadays this trick of dialectics is called "Kantian
Criticism").


252.

Christianity should never be forgiven for having ruined such men as
Pascal. This is precisely what should be combated in Christianity,
namely, that it has the will to break the spirit of the strongest
and noblest natures. One should take no rest until this thing is
utterly destroyed:--the ideal of mankind which Christianity advances,
the demands it makes upon men, and its "Nay" and "Yea" relative to
humanity. The whole of the remaining absurdities, that is to say,
Christian fable, Christian cobweb-spinning in ideas and principles,
and Christian theology, do not concern us; they might be a thousand
times more absurd and we should not raise a finger to destroy them.
But what we do stand up against, is that ideal which, thanks to its
morbid beauty and feminine seductiveness, thanks to its insidious and
slanderous eloquence, appeals to all the cowardices and vanities of
wearied souls,--and the strongest have their moments of fatigue,--as
though all that which seems most useful and desirable at such
moments--that is to say, confidence, artlessness, modesty, patience,
love of one's like, resignation, submission to God, and a sort of
self-surrender--were useful and desirable _per se_; as though the puny,
modest abortion which in these creatures takes the place of a soul,
this virtuous, mediocre animal and sheep of the flock--which deigns to
call itself man, were not only to take precedence of the stronger, more
evil, more passionate, more defiant, and more prodigal type of man, who
by virtue of these very qualities is exposed to a hundred times more
dangers than the former, but were actually to stand as an ideal for man
in general, as a goal, a measure--the highest desideratum. The creation
of _this_ ideal was the most appalling temptation that had ever
been put in the way of mankind; for, with it, the stronger and more
successful exceptions, the lucky cases among men, in which the will
to power and to growth leads the whole species "man" one step farther
forward, this type was threatened with disaster. By means of the values
of this ideal, the growth of such higher men would be checked at the
root. For these men, owing to their superior demands and duties,
readily accept a more dangerous life (speaking economically, it is a
case of an increase in the costs of the undertaking coinciding with
a greater chance of failure). What is it we combat in Christianity?
That it aims at destroying the strong, at breaking their spirit, at
exploiting their moments of weariness and debility, at converting
their proud assurance into anxiety and conscience-trouble; that it
knows how to poison the noblest instincts and to infect them with
disease, until their strength, their will to power, turns inwards,
against themselves--until the strong perish through their excessive
self-contempt and self-immolation: that gruesome way of perishing, of
which _Pascal_ is the most famous example.




II.


A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.


1. THE ORIGIN OF MORAL VALUATIONS.


253.

This is an attempt at investigating morality without being affected by
its charm, and not without some mistrust in regard to the beguiling
beauty of its attitudes and looks. A world which we can admire, which
is in keeping with our capacity for worship--which is continually
_demonstrating_ itself--in small things or in large: this is the
Christian standpoint which is common to us all.

But owing to an increase in our astuteness, in our mistrust, and in our
scientific spirit (also through a more developed instinct for truth,
which again is due to Christian influence), this interpretation has
grown ever less and less tenable for us.

The craftiest of subterfuges: Kantian criticism. The intellect not
only denies itself every right to interpret things in that way, but
also to reject the interpretation once it has been made. People are
satisfied with a _greater_ demand upon their credulity and faith, with
a renunciation of all right to reason concerning the proof of their
creed, with an intangible and superior "Ideal" (God) as a stop-gap.

The Hegelian subterfuge, a continuation of the Platonic, a piece
of romanticism and reaction, and at the same time a symptom of
the historical sense of a new _power_: "Spirit" itself is the
"self-revealing and self-realising ideal": we believe that in the
"process of, development" an ever greater proportion of this ideal is
being manifested--thus the ideal is being realised, faith is vested in
the _future_ into which all its noble needs are projected and in which
they are being worshipped.

In short:--

(1) God is unknowable to us and not to be demonstrated by us (the
concealed meaning behind the whole of the epistemological movement);

(2) God may be demonstrated, but as something evolving, and we are
part of it, as our pressing desire for an ideal proves (the concealed
meaning behind the historical movement).

It should be observed that criticism is _never_ levelled at the ideal
itself, but only at the problem which gives rise to a controversy
concerning the ideal--that is to say, why it has not yet been realised,
or why it is not demonstrable in small things as in great.

***

It makes all the difference: whether a man recognises this state of
distress as such owing to a passion or to a yearning in himself, or
whether it comes home to him as a problem which he arrives at only by
straining his thinking powers and his historical imagination to the
utmost.

Away from the religious and philosophical points of view we find the
same phenomena. Utilitarianism (socialism and democracy) criticises
the origin of moral valuations, though it believes in them just as
much as the Christian does. (What guilelessness! As if morality could
remain when the sanctioning _deity_ is no longer present! The belief in
a "Beyond" is absolutely necessary, if the faith in morality is to be
maintained.)

_Fundamental problem_: whence comes this almighty power of _Faith?
Whence this faith in morality?_ (It is betrayed by the fact that even
the fundamental conditions of life are falsely interpreted in favour of
it: despite our knowledge of plants and animals. "Self-preservation":
the Darwinian prospect of a reconciliation of the altruistic and
egotistic principles.)


254.

An inquiry into the _origin of our moral valuations_ and tables of
law has absolutely nothing to do with the _criticism_ of them, though
people persist in believing it has; the two matters lie quite apart,
notwithstanding the fact that the knowledge of the _pudenda origo_
of a valuation does diminish its prestige, and prepares the way to a
critical attitude and spirit towards it.

What is the actual worth of our valuations and tables of moral laws?
_What is the outcome of their dominion?_ For whom? In relation to
what?--answer: for Life. But _what is Life?_ A new and more definite
concept of what "Life" is, becomes necessary here. My formula of this
concept is: Life is Will to Power.

_What is the meaning of the very act of valuing?_ Does it point back to
another, metaphysical world, or does it point down? (As Kant believed,
who lived in a period which _preceded_ the great historical movement.)
In short: _what is its origin?_ Or had it no human "origin"?--Answer:
moral valuations are a sort of explanation, they constitute a method
of interpreting. Interpretation in itself is a symptom of definite
physiological conditions, as also of a definite spiritual level of
ruling judgments. _What is it that interprets?_--Our passions.


255

All virtues should be looked upon as physiological _conditions_: the
principal organic functions, more particularly, should be considered
necessary and good. All virtues are really refined _passions_ and
elevated physiological conditions.

Pity and philanthropy may be regarded as the developments of
sexual relations,--justice as the development of the passion for
revenge,--virtue as the love of resistance, the will to power,--honour
as an acknowledgment of an equal, or of an equally powerful, force.


256.

Under "Morality" I understand a system of valuations which is in
relation with the conditions of a creature's life.


257.

Formerly it was said of every form of morality, "Ye shall know them by
their fruits." I say of every form of morality: "It is a fruit, and
from it I learn the _Soil_ out of which it grew."


258.

I have tried to understand all moral judgments as symptoms and a
language of signs in which the processes of physiological prosperity
or the reverse, as also the consciousness of the conditions of
preservation and growth, are betrayed--a mode of interpretation equal
in worth to astrology, prejudices, created by instincts (peculiar
to races, communities, and different stages of existence, as, for
instance, youth or decay, etc.).

Applying this principle to the morality of Christian Europe more
particularly, we find that our moral values are signs of decline, of a
disbelief in _Life,_ and of a preparation for pessimism.

My leading doctrine is this: _there are no moral phenomena, but only a
moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation
itself lies beyond the pale of morality._

What is the meaning of the fact that we have imagined a
_contradiction_ in existence? This is of paramount importance: behind
all other valuations those moral valuations stand commandingly.
Supposing they disappear, according to what standard shall we then
measure? And then of what value would knowledge be, etc. etc.???


259.

A point of view: in all valuations there is a definite purpose:
the _preservation_ of an individual, a community, a race, a state,
a church, a belief, or a culture.--Thanks to the fact that people
_forget_ that all valuing has a purpose, one and the same man may swarm
with a host of contradictory valuations, and _therefore with a host of
contradictory impulses._ This is the _expression of disease in man_ as
opposed to the health of animals, in which all the instincts answer
certain definite purposes.

This creature full of contradictions, however, has in his being a grand
method of acquiring knowledge: he feels the pros and cons, he elevates
himself _to Justice_--that is to say, to the ascertaining of principles
_beyond the valuations good and evil._

The wisest man would thus be the _richest in contradictions,_ he would
also be gifted with mental antennæ wherewith he could understand all
kinds of men; and with it all he would have his great moments, when all
the chords in his being would ring in _splendid unison_--the rarest of
_accidents_ even in us! A sort of planetary movement.


260.

"To will" is to will an object. But "object," as an idea, involves
a valuation. Whence do valuations originate? Is a permanent norm,
"pleasant or painful," their basis?

But in an incalculable number of cases we first of all _make_ a thing
painful, by investing it with a valuation.

The compass of moral valuations: they play a part in almost every
mental impression. To us the world is _coloured_ by them.

We have imagined the purpose and value of all things: owing to this
we possess an enormous fund of _latent power,_ but the study of
_comparative_ values teaches us that values which were actually opposed
to each other have been held in high esteem, and that there have been
_many_ tables of laws (they could not, therefore, have been worth
anything _per se_).

The analysis of individual tables of laws revealed the fact that they
were framed (often very badly) as the _conditions of existence_ for
limited groups of people, to ensure their maintenance.

Upon examining modern men, we found that there are a large number
of _very different_ values to hand, and that they no longer contain
any creative power--the fundamental principle: "the condition of
existence" is now quite divorced from the moral values. It is much
more superfluous and not nearly so painful. It becomes an _arbitrary_
matter. Chaos.

Who creates _the goal_ which stands above mankind kind and above the
individual? Formerly morality was a _preservative_ measure: but nobody
wants to _preserve_ any longer, there is nothing to preserve. Thus we
are reduced to an _experimental morality,_ each must _postulate_ a goal
for himself.


261.

What is the _criterion_ of a moral action? (1) Its disinterestedness,
(2) its universal acceptation, etc. But this is parlour-morality. Races
must be studied and observed, and, in each case, the criterion must be
discovered, as also the thing it expresses: a belief such as: "This
particular attitude or behaviour belongs to the principal condition of
our existence." Immoral means "that which brings about ruin." Now all
societies in which these principles were discovered have met with their
ruin: a few of these principles have been used and used again, because
every newly established community required them; this was the case, for
instance, with "Thou shalt not steal." In ages when people could not be
expected to show any marked social instinct (as, for instance, in the
age of the Roman Empire) the latter was, religiously speaking, directed
towards the idea of "spiritual salvation," or, in philosophical
parlance, towards "the greatest happiness." For even the philosophers
of Greece did not feel any more for their πολις.


262.

_The necessity of false values._--A judgment may be refuted when it is
shown that it was conditioned: but the necessity of retaining it is
not thereby cancelled. Reasons can no more eradicate false values than
they can alter astigmatism in a man's eyes.

The need of their _existence_ must be understood: they are the _result_
of causes which have nothing to do with reasoning.


263.

To _see_ and _reveal_ the problem of morality seems to me to be the new
task and the principal thing of all. I deny that this has been done by
moral philosophies heretofore.


264.

How false and deceptive men have always been concerning the fundamental
facts of their inner world! Here to have no eye; here to hold one's
tongue, and here to open one's mouth.


265.

There seems to be no knowledge or consciousness of the many
_revolutions_ that have taken place in moral judgments, and of
the number of times that "evil" has really and seriously been
christened "good" and _vice versa._ I myself pointed to one of these
transformations with the words "Sittlichkeit der Sitte."[3] Even
conscience has changed its sphere: formerly there was such a thing as
a gregarious pang of conscience.


[Footnote 3: The morality of custom.]


266.

A. _Morality_ as the work of _Immorality._

1. In order that moral values may attain to _supremacy,_ a host of
immoral forces and passions must assist them.

2. The establishment of moral values is the work of immoral passions
and considerations.

B. _Morality as the work of error._

C. _'Morality gradually contradicts itself._ Requital--Truthfulness,
Doubt, έποχή, Judging. The "Immorality" of _belief_ in morality.

The steps:--

1. Absolute dominion of morality: all biological phenomena measured and
_judged_ according to its values.

2. The attempt to identify Life with morality (symptom of awakened
scepticism: morality must no longer be regarded as the opposite of
Life); many means are sought--even a transcendental one.

3. The _opposition of Life_ and _Morality._ Morality condemned and
sentenced by Life.

D. To what extent was morality _dangerous_ to Life?

_(a)_ It depreciated the joy of living and the gratitude felt towards
Life, etc.

_(b)_ It checked the tendency to beautify and to ennoble Life.

_(c)_ It checked the knowledge of Life.

_(d)_ It checked the unfolding of Life, because it tried to set the
highest phenomena thereof at variance with itself.

E. Contra-account: the _usefulness_ of morality to Life.

(1) Morality may be a preservative measure for the general whole, it
may be a process of uniting dispersed members: it is useful as an agent
in the production of the man who is a "_tool_."

(2) Morality may be a preservative measure mitigating the inner danger
threatening man from the direction of his passions: it is useful to
"_mediocre people_."

(3) Morality may be a preservative measure resisting the life-poisoning
influences of profound sorrow and bitterness: it is useful to the
"_sufferers_."

(4) Morality may be a preservative measure opposed to the terrible
outbursts of the mighty: it is useful to the "_lowly_."

267.

It is an excellent thing when one can use the expressions "right" and
"wrong" in a definite, narrow, and "bourgeois" sense, as for instance
in the sentence: "Do right and fear no one";[4]--that is to say, to
do one's duty, according to the rough scheme of life within the limit
of which a community exists.--Let us not think meanly of what a few
thousand years of morality have inculcated upon our minds.


[Footnote 4: "Thue Recht und scheue Niemand."]


268.

Two types of morality must not be confounded: the morality with which
the instinct that has remained healthy defends itself from incipient
decadence, and the other morality by means of which this decadence
asserts itself, justifies itself, and leads downwards.

The first-named is usually stoical, hard, tyrannical _(Stoicism_ itself
was an example of the sort of "drag-chain" morality we speak of); the
other is gushing, sentimental, full of secrets, it has the women and
"beautiful feelings" on its side (Primitive Christianity was an example
of this morality).


269.

I shall try to regard all moralising, with one glance, as a
phenomenon--also as a _riddle._ Moral phenomena have preoccupied me
like riddles. To-day I should be able to give a reply to the question:
why _should_ my neighbour's welfare be of greater value to me than
my own? and why is it that my neighbour himself _should_ value his
welfare differently from the way in which I value it--that is to say,
why should precisely _my_ welfare be paramount in his mind? What is
the meaning of this "Thou shalt," which is regarded as "given" even by
philosophers themselves?

The seemingly insane idea that a man should esteem the act he performs
for a fellow-creature, higher than the one he performs for himself,
and that the same fellow-creature should do so too (that only those
acts should be held to be good which are performed with an eye to
the neighbour and for his welfare) has its reasons--namely, as the
result of the social instinct which rests upon the valuation, that
single individuals are of little importance although collectively
their importance is very great. This, of course, presupposes that they
constitute a _community_ with one feeling and one conscience pervading
the whole. It is therefore a sort of exercise for keeping one's eyes in
a certain direction; it is the will to a kind of optics which renders a
view of one's self impossible.

My idea: goals are wanting, and _these must be individuals._ We see the
general drift: every individual gets sacrificed and serves as a tool.
Let any one keep his eyes open in the streets--is not every one he sees
a slave? Whither? What is the purpose of it all?


270.

How is it possible that a man can respect himself _only_ in regard
to moral values, that he subordinates and despises everything in
favour of good, evil, improvement, spiritual salvation, etc.? as,
for instance, Henri Fréd. Amiel. What is the meaning of the _moral
idiosyncrasy_?--I mean this both in the psychological and physiological
sense, as it was, for instance, in Pascal. In cases, then, in which
_other_ great qualities are not wanting; and even in the case of
Schopenhauer, who obviously valued what he did not and _could_ not have
...--is it not the result of a merely mechanical _moral interpretation_
of real states of pain and displeasure? is it not a particular form
of _sensibility_ which does _not_ happen to _understand_ the cause
of its many unpleasurable feelings, but _thinks to explain them with
moral hypotheses?_ In this way an occasional feeling of well-being and
_strength_ always appears under the optics of a "clean conscience,"
flooded with light through the proximity of God and the consciousness
of salvation.... Thus the _moral idiosyncratist_ has (1) _either_
acquired his real worth in approximating to the virtuous type of
society: "the good fellow," "_the upright man_"--a sort of medium
state of high respectability: _mediocre_ in all his abilities,
but honest, conscientious, firm, respected, and tried, in all his
aspirations; (2) _or,_ he imagines he has acquired that worth, simply
because he cannot otherwise understand all his states--he is unknown to
himself; he therefore interprets himself in this fashion.--Morality is
the only _scheme of interpretation_ by means of which this type of man
can tolerate himself:--is it a form of vanity?


271.

_The predominance of moral values._--The consequence of this
predominance: the corruption of psychology, etc.; the fatality which
is associated with it everywhere. What is the _meaning_ of this
predominance? What does it point to?

To a certain _greater urgency_ of saying nay or yea definitely in
this domain. All sorts of _imperatives_ have been used in order to
make moral values appear as if they were for ever fixed:--they have
been enjoined for the longest period of time: they almost appear
to be instinctive, like inner commands. They are the expression of
_society's preservative measures,_ for they are felt to be almost
_beyond question._ The practice--that is to say, the _utility_ of being
agreed concerning superior values, has attained in this respect to
a sort of sanction. We observe that every care is taken to paralyse
reflection and criticism in this department--look at Kant's attitude!
not to speak of those who believe that it is immoral even to prosecute
"research" in these matters.


272.

_My desire_ is to show the absolute homogeneity of all phenomena, and
to ascribe to moral differentiations but the value of _perspective_; to
show that all that which is praised as moral is essentially the same
as that which is immoral, and was only made possible, according to
the law of all moral development--that is to say, by means of immoral
artifices and with a view to immoral ends--just as all that which
has been decried as immoral is, from the standpoint of economics,
both superior and essential; and how development leading to a greater
abundance of life necessarily Involves _progress_ in the realm _of
immorality_. "Truth," that is the extent to which we _allow_ ourselves
to comprehend _this_ fact.


273.

But do not let us fear: as a matter of fact, we require a great deal of
morality, in order to be immoral in this subtle way; let me speak in a
parable:--

A physiologist interested in a certain illness, and an invalid who
wishes to be cured of that same illness, have not the same interests.
Let us suppose that the illness happens to be morality,--for morality
is an illness,--and that we Europeans are the invalid: what an amount
of subtle torment and difficulty would arise supposing we Europeans
were, at once, our own inquisitive spectators and the physiologist
above-mentioned! Should we under these circumstances earnestly desire
to rid ourselves of morality? Should we want to? This is of course
irrespective of the question whether we should be _able_ to do
so--whether we can be _cured_ at all?




2. THE HERD.



274.

_Whose will to power is morality?_--The _common factor_ of all European
history since the time of _Socrates_ is the attempt to make the _moral
values_ dominate all other values, in order that they should not be
only the leader and judge of life, but also: (1) knowledge, (2) Art,
(3) political and social aspirations. "Amelioration" regarded as the
only duty, everything else used as a _means_ thereto (or as a force
distributing, hindering, and endangering its realisation, and therefore
to be opposed and annihilated ...).--A similar movement to be observed
_in China_ and _India._

What is the meaning of this _will to power on the part of moral
values,_ which has played such a part in the world's prodigious
evolutions?

_Answer:--Three powers lie concealed behind it_; (1) The instinct
of the _herd_ opposed to the strong and the independent; (2) the
instinct of all _sufferers_ and all _abortions_ opposed to the happy
and well-constituted; (3) the instinct of the mediocre opposed to
the exceptions.--_Enormous advantage of this movement,_ despite the
cruelty, falseness, and narrow-mindedness which has helped it along
(for the history of the _struggle of morality with the fundamental
instincts of life_ is in itself the greatest piece of immorality that
has ever yet been witnessed on earth ...).


275.


The fewest succeed in discovering a problem behind all that which
constitutes our daily life, and to which we have become accustomed
throughout the ages--our eye does not seem focussed for such things:
at least, this seems to me to be the case in so far as our morality is
concerned.

"Every man should be the preoccupation of his fellows"; he who thinks
in this way deserves honour: no one ought to think of himself.

"Thou shalt": an impulse which, like the sexual impulse, cannot fathom
itself, is set apart and is not condemned as all the other instincts
are--on the contrary, it is made to be their standard and their judge!

The problem of "equality," in the face of the fact that we all thirst
for distinction: here, on the contrary, we should demand of ourselves
what we demand of others. That is so tasteless and obviously insane;
but--it is felt to be holy and of a higher order. The fact that it is
opposed to common sense is not even noticed.

Self-sacrifice and self-abnegation are considered distinguishing, as
are also the attempt to obey morality implicitly, and the belief that
one should be every one's equal in its presence.

The neglect and the surrender of Life and of well-being is held to be
distinguished, as are also the complete renunciation of individual
valuations and the severe exaction from every one of the same
sacrifice. "The value of an action is once and for all _fixed_: every
individual must submit to this valuation."

We see: an authority speaks--who speaks?--We must condone it in human
pride, if man tried to make this authority as high as possible, for
he wanted to feel as humble as he possibly could by the side of it.
Thus--God speaks!

God was necessary as an unconditional sanction which has no superior,
as a "Categorical Imperator": or, in so far as people believed in the
authority of reason, what was needed was a "unitarian metaphysics" by
means of which this view could be made logical.

Now, admitting that faith in God is dead: the question arises once
more: "who speaks?" My answer, which I take from biology and not from
metaphysics, is: "the _gregarious instinct speaks._" This is what
desires to be master: hence its "thou shalt!"--it will allow the
individual to exist only as a part of a whole, only in favour of the
whole, it hates those who detach themselves from everything--it turns
the hatred of all individuals against him.


276.

The whole of the morality of Europe is based upon the values _which
are useful to the herd_: the sorrow of all higher and exceptional men
is explained by the fact that everything which distinguishes them from
others reaches their consciousness in the form of a feeling of their
own smallness and egregiousness. It is the _virtues_ of modern men
which are the causes of pessimistic gloominess; the mediocre, like the
herd, are not troubled much with questions or with conscience--they
are cheerful. (Among the gloomy strong men, Pascal and Schopenhauer are
noted examples.)

_The more dangerous a quality seems to the herd, the more completely it
is condemned._


277.

The morality of _truthfulness_ in the herd. "Thou shalt be
recognisable, thou shalt express thy inner nature by means of clear
and constant signs--otherwise thou art dangerous: and supposing
thou art evil, thy power of dissimulation is absolutely the worst
thing for the herd. We despise the secretive and those whom we
cannot identify.--_Consequently_ thou must regard thyself as
recognisable, thou mayest not remain _concealed_ from thyself, thou
mayest not even believe in the possibility of thy ever _changing_."
Thus, the insistence upon truthfulness has as its main object the
_recognisability_ and the _stability_ of the individual. As a matter
of fact, it is the object of education to make each gregarious
unit believe in a certain _definite dogma_ concerning the nature
of man: education _first creates this dogma_ and thereupon exacts
"truthfulness."


278.

Within the confines of a herd or of a community--that is to say, _inter
pares,_ the _over-estimation_ of truthfulness is very reasonable. A
man must not allow himself to be deceived--and _consequently_ he
adopts as his own personal morality that he should deceive no one!--a
sort of mutual obligation among equals! In his dealings with the
outside world caution and danger demand that he should _be on his guard
against deception_: the first psychological condition of this attitude
would mean that he is also on his guard against _his own people._
Mistrust thus appears as the source of truthfulness.


279.

_A criticism of the virtues of the herd._--Inertia is active: (1)
In confidence, because mistrust makes suspense, reflection, and
observation necessary. (2) In veneration, where the gulf that
separates power is great and submission necessary: then, so that
fear may cease to exist, everybody tries to love and esteem, while
the difference in power is interpreted as a difference of value:
and thus the relationship to the powerful _no longer has anything
revolting in it._ (3) In the sense of truth. What is truth? Truth
is that explanation of things which causes us the smallest amount
of mental exertion (apart from this, lying is extremely fatiguing).
(4) In sympathy. It is a relief to know one's self on the same level
with all, to feel as all feel, and to _accept_ a belief which is
already current; it is something passive beside the activity which
appropriates and continually carries into practice the most individual
rights of valuation (the latter process allows of no repose). (5) In
impartiality and coolness of judgment: people scout the strain of being
moved, and prefer to be detached and "objective." (6) In uprightness:
people prefer to obey a law which is to hand rather than to _create_
a new one, rather than to command themselves and others: the fear of
commanding--it is better to submit than to rebel. (7) In toleration:
the fear of exercising a right or of enforcing a judgment.


280.

The instinct of the herd values the _juste milieu_ and the _average_
as the highest and most precious of all things: the spot where the
majority is to be found, and the air that it breathes there. In this
way it is the opponent of all order of rank; it regards a climb from
the level to the heights in the same light as a descent from the
majority to the minority. The herd regards the _exception,_ whether
it be above or beneath its general level, as something which is
antagonistic and dangerous to itself. Their trick in dealing with
the exceptions above them, the strong, the mighty, the wise, and the
fruitful, is to persuade them to become guardians, herdsmen, and
watchmen--in fact, to become their _head-servants_: thus they convert
a danger into a thing which is useful. In the middle, fear ceases:
here a man is alone with nothing; here there is not much room even for
misunderstandings; here there is equality; here a man's individual
existence is not felt as a reproach, but as the _right_ existence;
here contentment reigns supreme. Mistrust is active only towards the
exceptions; to be an exception is to be a sinner.


281.

If, in compliance with our communal instincts, we make certain
regulations for, ourselves and forbid certain acts, we do not of
course, in common reason, forbid a certain kind of "existence," nor
a certain attitude of mind, but only a particular application and
development of this "existence" and "attitude of mind." But then the
idealist of virtue, the _moralist,_ comes along and says: "God sees
into the human heart! What matters it that ye abstain from certain
acts: ye are not any better on that account!" Answer: Mr. Longears
and Virtue-Monger, we do not want to be better at all, we are quite
satisfied with ourselves, all we desire is that we should not _harm_
one another--and that is why we forbid certain actions when they take
a particular direction--that is to say, when they are against our
own interests: but that does not alter the fact that when these same
actions are directed against the enemies of our community--against
you, for instance--we are at a loss to know how to pay them sufficient
honour. We educate our children up to them; we develop them to the
fullest extent. Did we share that "god-fearing" radicalism which your
holy craziness recommends, if we were green-horns enough to condemn
the source of those forbidden "acts" by condemning the "heart" and the
"attitude of mind" which recommends them, that would mean condemning
our very existence, and with it its greatest prerequisite--an attitude
of mind, a heart, a passion which we revere with all our soul. By
our decrees we prevent this attitude of mind from breaking out and
venting itself in a useless way--we are prudent when we prescribe
such laws for ourselves; we are also _moral_ in so doing.... Have
you no idea--however vague--what sacrifices it has cost us, how much
self-control, self-subjection, and hardness it has compelled us to
exercise? We are vehement in our desires; there are times when we even
feel as if we could devour each other.... But the "communal spirit" is
master of us: have you observed that this is almost a definition of
morality?


282.

_The weakness of the gregarious animal_ gives rise to a morality
which is precisely similar to that resulting from the weakness of the
decadent man: they understand each other; they _associate_ with each
other (the great decadent religions always rely upon the support of
the herd). The gregarious animal, as such, is free from all morbid
characteristics, it is in itself an invaluable creature; but it is
incapable of taking any initiative; it must have a "leader"--the
priests understand this.... The state is not subtle, not secret
enough; the art of "directing consciences" slips its grasp. How is the
gregarious animal infected with illness by the priest?


283.

_The hatred directed against the privileged in body and spirit_:
the revolt of the ugly and bungled souls against the beautiful, the
proud, and the cheerful. The weapons used: contempt of beauty, of
pride, of happiness: "There is no such thing as merit," "The danger is
enormous: it is right that one _should_ tremble and feel ill at ease,"
"Naturalness is evil; it is right to oppose all that is natural--even
'reason'" (all that is antinatural is elevated to the highest place).

It is again the _priests_ who exploit this condition, and who win the
"people" over to themselves. "The sinner" over whom there is more joy
in heaven than over "the just person." This is the struggle against
"paganism" (the pang of conscience, a measure for disturbing the
harmony of the soul).

_The hatred of the mediocre_ for the _exceptions,_ and of the herd for
its independent members. (Custom actually regarded as "morality.") The
revulsion of feeling _against_ "egotism": that only is worth anything
which is done "for another." "We are all equal";--against the love of
dominion, against "dominion" in general;--against privilege;--against
sectarians, free-spirits, and sceptics;--against philosophy (a
force opposing mechanical and automatic instincts); in philosophers
themselves--"the categorical imperative," the essential nature of
morality, "general and universal."


284.

The qualities and tendencies which are _praised_: peacefulness, equity,
moderation, modesty, reverence, respectfulness, bravery, chastity,
honesty, fidelity, credulity, rectitude, confidence, resignation,
pity, helpfulness, conscientiousness, simplicity, mildness, justice,
generosity, leniency, obedience, disinterestedness, freedom from envy,
good nature, industry.

We must ascertain to what extent _such qualities_ are conditioned
as means to the attainment of certain desires and _ends_ (often an
"_evil_" end); or as results of dominating passions (for instance,
_intellectuality_): or as the expressions of certain states of
need--that is to say, as _preservative measures_ (as in the case of
citizens, slaves, women, etc.).

In short, every one of them is not _considered "good" for its own
sake,_ but rather because it approximates to a standard prescribed
either by "society" or by the "herd," as a means to the ends of the
latter, as necessary for their preservation and enhancement, and also
as the result of an actual _gregarious instinct_ in the individual;
these qualities are thus in the service of an instinct which is
_fundamentally different_ from these _states of virtue._ For the herd
is _antagonistic, selfish, and pitiless_ to the outside world; it is
full of a love of dominion and of feelings of mistrust, etc.

In the "herdsman" this _antagonism_ comes to the _fore_ he must have
qualities which are _the reverse of_ those possessed by the herd.

The mortal enmity of the herd towards all _order of rank_: its
instinct is in favour of the _leveller_ (Christ). Towards all _strong
individuals (the sovereigns)_ it is hostile, unfair, intemperate,
arrogant, cheeky, disrespectful, cowardly, false, lying, pitiless,
deceitful, envious, revengeful.


285.

My teaching is this, that the herd seeks to maintain and preserve one
type of man, and that it defends itself on two sides--that is to say,
against those which are decadents from its ranks (criminals, etc.), and
against those who rise superior to its dead level. The instincts of the
herd tend to a stationary state of society; they merely preserve. They
have no creative power.

The pleasant feelings of goodness and benevolence with which the just
man fills us (as opposed to the suspense and the fear to which the
great innovating man gives rise) are our own sensations of personal
security and equality: in this way the gregarious animal glorifies
the gregarious nature, and then begins to feel at ease. This judgment
on the part of the "comfortable" ones rigs itself out in the most
beautiful words--and thus "morality" is born. Let any one observe,
however, the _hatred of the herd_ for all truthful men.


286.

Let us not deceive ourselves! When a man hears the whisper of the moral
imperative in his breast, as altruism would have him hear it, he
shows thereby that he belongs to the _herd._ When a man is conscious
of the opposite feelings,--that is to say, when he sees his danger and
his undoing in disinterested and unselfish actions,--then he does not
belong to the herd.


287.

My philosophy aims at a new _order of rank: not_ at an individualistic
morality.[5] The spirit of the herd should rule within the herd--but
not beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally
different valuation for their actions, as do also the independent ones
or the beasts of prey, etc.


[Footnote 5: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE--Here is a broad distinction between
Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer.]



3. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING MORALITY.


288.

_Morality regarded as an attempt at establishing human pride._--The
"Free-Will" theory is anti-religious. Its ultimate object is to bestow
the right upon man to regard himself as the _cause_ of his highest
states and actions: it is a form of the growing _feeling of pride._

Man feels his power his "happiness"; as they say: there must be a will
behind these states--otherwise they do not belong to him. Virtue is
an attempt at postulating a modicum of will, past or present, as the
necessary antecedent to every exalted and strong feeling of happiness:
if the will to certain actions is regularly present in consciousness,
a sensation of power may be interpreted as its result. This is a
_merely psychological point of view,_ based upon the false assumption
that nothing belongs to us which we have not consciously willed. The
whole of the teaching of responsibility relies upon the ingenuous
psychological rule that the will is the only cause, and that one must
have been aware of having willed in order to be able to regard _one's
self_ as a cause.

_Then comes the counter-movement_--that of the moral-philosophers.
These men still labour under the delusion that a man is responsible
only for what he has willed. The value of man is then made a _moral
value_: thus morality becomes a _causa prima_; for this there must be
some kind of principle in man, and "free will" is posited as _prima
causa._ The _arrière pensée_ is always this: If man is not a _causa
prima_ through his will, he must be irresponsible,--therefore he
does not come within the jurisdiction of morals,--virtue or vice is
automatic and mechanical....

In short: in order that man may respect himself he must be capable of
becoming evil.


289.

_Theatricalness_ regarded as the result of "Free Will" morality. It
is a step in the _development of the feeling of power itself_ to
believe one's self to be the author of one's exalted moments (of one's
perfection) and to have _willed_ them....

(Criticism: all perfect action is precisely unconscious and not
deliberate; consciousness is often the expression of an imperfect
and often morbid constitution. _Personal perfection regarded as
determined by will, as an act of consciousness,_ as reason with
dialectics, is a caricature, a sort of self-contradiction.... Any
degree of consciousness renders perfection _impossible._ ... A form of
_theatricalness_.)



290.

The _moral hypothesis,_ designed with a view to _justifying God,_
said: evil must be voluntary (simply in order that the _voluntariness
of goodness_ might be believed in); and again, all evil and suffering
have an _object which is salvation_.

The notion "guilt" was considered as something which had no
connection at all with the ultimate cause of existence, and the
notion "punishment" was held to be an educating and beneficent act,
consequently an act proceeding from a _good_ God.

The absolute dominion of moral valuations _over_ all others: nobody
doubted that God could not be evil and could do no harm--that is to
say, perfection was understood merely as _moral_ perfection.


291.

How false is the supposition that an action must depend upon what has
preceded it in consciousness! And morality has been measured in the
light of this supposition, as also criminality....

The value of an action must be judged by its results, say the
utilitarians: to measure it according to its origin involves the
impossibility of _knowing_ that origin.

But do we know its results? Five stages ahead, perhaps. Who can tell
what an action provokes and sets in motion? As a stimulus? As the spark
which fires a powder-magazine? Utilitarians are simpletons.... And
finally, they would first of all have to know _what_ is useful; here
also their sight can travel only over five stages or so.... They have
no notion of the great economy which cannot dispense with evil.

We do not know the origin or the results: has an action, then, any
value?

We have yet the action itself to consider: the states of consciousness
that accompany it, the yea or nay which follows upon its performance:
does the value of an action lie in the subjective states which
accompany it? (In that case, the value of music would be measured
according to the pleasure or displeasure which it occasions in us ...
which it gives to the _composer._ ...) Obviously feelings of value
must accompany it, a sensation of power, restraint, or impotence--for
instance, freedom or lightsomeness. Or, putting the question
differently: could the value of an action be reduced to physiological
terms? could it be the expression of completely free or constrained
life?--Maybe its _biological_ value is expressed in this way....

If, then, an action can be judged neither in the light of its origin,
nor its results, nor its accompaniments in consciousness, then its
value must be _x_ unknown....


292.

It amounts to a _denaturalisation of morality,_ to _separate_ an action
from a man; to direct hatred or contempt against "sin"; to believe that
there are actions which are good or bad in themselves.

The _re-establishment of_ "_Nature_": an action in itself is quite
devoid of value; the whole question is this: who performed it? One and
the same "crime" may, in one case, be the greatest privilege, in the
other infamy. As a matter of fact, it is the selfishness of the judges
which interprets an action (in regard to its author) according as to
whether it was useful or harmful to themselves (or in relation to its
degree of likeness or unlikeness to them).


293.

The concept "reprehensible action" presents us with some difficulties.
Nothing in all that happens can be reprehensible in itself: _one would
not dare to eliminate it completely_; for everything is so bound up
with everything else, that to exclude one part would mean to exclude
the whole.

A reprehensible action, therefore, would mean a reprehensible world as
a whole....

And even then, in a reprehensible world even reprehending would be
reprehensible.... And the consequence of an attitude of mind that
condemns everything, would be the affirmation of everything in
practice.... If Becoming is a huge ring, everything that forms a part
of it is of equal value, is eternal and necessary.--In all correlations
of yea and nay, of preference and rejection, love and hate, all that
is expressed is a certain point of view, peculiar to the interests of
a certain type of living organism: everything that lives says _yea_ by
the very fact of its existence.


294.

_Criticism of the subjective feelings of value.--_Conscience. Formerly
people argued: conscience condemns this action, therefore this action
is reprehensible. But, as a matter of fact, conscience condemns an
action because that action has been condemned for a long period of
time: all conscience does is to imitate. It does not create values.
That which first led to the condemnation of certain actions, was
_not_ conscience: but the knowledge of (or the prejudice against)
its consequences.... The approbation of conscience, the feeling of
well-being, of "inner peace," is of the same order of emotions as the
artist's joy over his work--it proves nothing.... Self-contentment
proves no more in favour of that which gives rise to it, than its
absence can prove anything against the value of the thing which fails
to give rise to it. We are far too ignorant to be able to judge of the
value of our actions: in this respect we lack the ability to regard
things objectively. Even when we condemn an action, we do not do so
as judges, but as adversaries.... When noble sentiments accompany an
action, they prove nothing in its favour: an artist may present us
with an absolutely insignificant thing, though he be in the throes of
the most exalted pathos during its production. It were wiser to regard
these sentiments as misleading: they actually beguile our eye and our
power, away from criticism, from caution and from suspicion, and the
result often is that we make _fools_ of ourselves ... they actually
make fools of us.


295.

We are heirs to the conscience-vivisection and self-crucifixion of two
thousand years: in these two practices lie perhaps our longest efforts
at becoming perfect, our mastery, and certainly our subtlety; we have
affiliated natural propensities with a heavy conscience.

An attempt to produce an entirely opposite state of affairs would be
possible: that is to say, to affiliate all desires of a beyond, all
sympathy with things which are opposed to the senses, the intellect,
and nature--in fact, all the ideals that have existed hitherto (which
were all anti-worldly), with a heavy conscience.


296.

The great _crimes_ in _psychology_:--

(1) That all _pain_ and _unhappiness_ should have been falsified by
being associated with what is wrong (guilt). (Thus pain was robbed of
its innocence.)

(2) That all _strong emotions_ (wantonness, voluptuousness, triumph,
pride, audacity, knowledge, assurance, and happiness in itself) were
branded as sinful, as seductive, and as suspicious.

(3) That _feelings of weakness,_ inner acts of cowardice, lack of
personal courage, should have decked themselves in the most beautiful
words, and have been taught as desirable in the highest degree.

(4) That _greatness_ in man should have been given the meaning of
disinterestedness, self-sacrifice for another's good, for other people;
that even in the scientist and the artist, the _elimination of the
individual personality_ is presented as the cause of the greatest
knowledge and ability.

(5) That _love_ should have been twisted round to mean submission
(and altruism), whereas it is in reality an act of appropriation or
of bestowal, resulting in the last case from a superabundance in the
wealth of a given personality. Only the _wholest_ people can love; the
disinterested ones, the "objective" ones, are the worst lovers (just
ask the girls!). This principle also applies to the love of God or of
the "home country": a man must be able to rely absolutely upon himself.
(Egotism may be regarded as the _pre-eminence of the ego,_ altruism as
the _pre-eminence of others_.)

(6) Life regarded as a punishment (happiness as a means of seduction);
the passions regarded as devilish; confidence in one's self as godless.

_The whole of psychology is a psychology of obstacles,_ a sort of
_barricade_ built out of fear; on the one hand we find the masses (the
botched and bungled, the mediocre) defending themselves, by means of
it, against the _strong_ (and finally _destroying_ them in their growth
...); on the other hand, we find all the instincts with which these
classes are best able to prosper, sanctified and alone held in honour
by them. Let anyone examine the Jewish priesthood.


297.

_The vestiges of the depreciation of Nature_ through moral
transcendence: The value of disinterestedness, the cult of altruism;
the belief in a reward in the play of natural consequences; the belief
in "goodness" and in genius itself, as if the one, like the other,
were the _result of disinterestedness_; the continuation of the
Church's sanction of the life of the citizen; the absolutely deliberate
misunderstanding of history (as a means of educating up to morality)
or pessimism in the attitude taken up towards history (the latter
is just as much a result of the depreciation of Nature, as is that
_pseudo-justification_ of history, that refusal to see history as the
pessimist _sees_ it).


298.

"_Morality for its own sake_"--this is an important step in the
denaturalisation of morals: in itself it appears as a final value. In
this phase religion has generally become saturated with it: as, for
instance, in the case of Judaism. It likewise goes through a phase in
which it _separates itself from_ religion, and in which no God is
"moral" enough for it: it then prefers the impersonal ideal.... This is
how the case stands at present.

"_Art for Art's sake_": this is a similarly dangerous principle: by
this means a false contrast is lent to things--it culminates in the
slander of reality ("idealising" _into the hateful_). When an ideal
is severed from reality, the latter is debased, impoverished, and
calumniated. _"Beauty for Beauty's sake," "Truth for Truth's sake,"
"Goodness for Goodness' sake"_--these are three forms of the evil eye
for reality.

_Art, knowledge, and morality_ are _means_: instead of recognising a
life-promoting tendency in them, they have been associated with the
_opposite of Life_--with "_God_"--they have also been regarded as
revelations of a higher world, which here and there transpires through
them....

"_Beautiful_" and "_ugly_," "_true_" and "_false_," "_good_" and
"_evil_"--these things are _distinctions_ and _antagonisms_ which
betray the preservative and promotive measures of Life, not necessarily
of man alone, but of all stable and enduring organisms which take up a
definite stand against their opponents. The _war_ which thus ensues is
the essential factor: it is a means of _separating_ things, _leading to
stronger_ isolation....


299.

_Moral naturalism_: The tracing back of apparently independent and
supernatural values to their real "nature"--that is to say, to
_natural immorality,_ to natural "utility," etc.

Perhaps I may designate the tendency of these observations by the term
_moral naturalism_: my object is to re-translate the moral values which
have apparently become independent and _unnatural_ into their real
nature--that is to say, into their natural "_immorality_."

_N.B._--Refer to Jewish "holiness" and its natural basis. The case is
the same in regard to _the moral law which has been made sovereign,_
emancipated from its real _feature_ (until it is almost the _opposite_
of Nature).

The stages in the _denaturalisation of morality_ (or so-called
"_Idealisation_"):--

First it is a road to individual happiness,

then it is the result of knowledge,

then it is a Categorical Imperative,

then it is a way to Salvation,

then it is a denial of the will to live.

(The gradual progress of the _hostility_ of morality to _Life_.)


300.

The suppressed and effaced _Heresy_ in morality.--Concepts: paganism,
master-morality, _virtù_.


301.

_My problem_: What harm has mankind suffered hitherto from morals, as
also from its own morality? Intellectual harm, etc.


302.

Why are not human values once more deposited nicely in the rut to
which they alone have a right--as routinary values? Many species
of animals have already become extinct; supposing man were also to
disappear, nothing would be lacking on earth. A man should be enough of
a philosopher to admire even this "nothing" (_Nil admirari_).


303.

Man, a small species of very excitable animals,
which--fortunately--has its time. Life in general on earth is a
matter of a moment, an incident, an exception that has no consequence,
something which is of no importance whatever to the general character
of the earth; the earth itself is, like every star, a hiatus between
two nonentities, an event without a plan, without reason, will, or
self-consciousness--the worst kind of necessity--_foolish_ necessity....
Something in us rebels against this view; the serpent vanity whispers
to our hearts, "All this must be false because it is revolting....
Could not all this be appearance? And man in spite of all, to use
Kant's words"----



4. HOW VIRTUE IS MADE TO DOMINATE.


304.

_Concerning the ideal of the moralist._--In this treatise we wish to
speak of the great _politics_ of virtue. We wrote it for the use of
all those who are interested, not so much in the process of becoming
virtuous as in that of making others virtuous--in how virtue _is made
to dominate._ I even intend to prove that in order to desire this
one thing--the dominion of virtue--the other must be systematically
avoided; that is to say, one must renounce all hopes of becoming
virtuous. This sacrifice is great: but such an end is perhaps a
sufficient reward for such a sacrifice. And even greater sacrifices!...
And some of the most famous moralists have risked as much. For these,
indeed, had already recognised and anticipated the truth which is to
be revealed for the first time in this treatise: that the _dominion of
virtue_ is absolutely attainable _only by the use of the same means_
which are employed in the attainment of any other dominion, in any case
not _by_ means of virtue itself....

As I have already said, this treatise deals with the politics of
virtue: it postulates an ideal of these politics; it describes it as it
ought to be, if anything at all can be perfect on this earth. Now, no
philosopher can be in any doubt as to what the type of perfection is
in politics; it is, of course, Machiavellianism. But Machiavellianism
which is _pur, sans mélange, cru, vert, dans toute sa force, dans
toute son âpreté,_ is superhuman, divine, transcendental, and can
never be achieved by man--the most he can do is to approximate it.
Even in this narrower kind of politics--in the politics of virtue--the
ideal never seems to have been realised. Plato, too, only bordered
upon it. Granted that one have eyes for concealed things, one can
discover, even in the most guileless and most conscious _moralists_
(and this is indeed the name of these moral politicians and of the
founders of all newer moral forces), traces showing that they too paid
their tribute to human weakness. _They all aspired_ to virtue on their
own account--at least in their moments of weariness; and this is the
leading and most capital error on the part of any moralist--whose duty
it is to be an _immoralist in deeds._ That he must not exactly _appear
to be the latter,_ is another matter. Or rather it is _not_ another
matter: systematic self-denial of this kind (or, expressed morally:
dissimulation) belongs to, and is part and parcel of, the moralist's
canon and of his self-imposed duties: without it he can never attain
to his particular kind of perfection. Freedom from morality _and from
truth_ when enjoyed for that purpose which rewards every sacrifice: for
the sake of making _morality dominate_--that is the canon. Moralists
are in need of the _attitudes of virtue,_ as also of the attitudes of
truth; their error begins when they _yield_ to virtue, when they lose
control of virtue, when they themselves become _moral_ or _true._ A
great moralist is, among other things, necessarily a great actor; his
only danger is that his pose may unconsciously become a second nature,
just like his ideal, which is to keep his _esse_ and his _operari_
apart in a divine way; everything he does must be done _sub specie
boni_--a lofty, remote, and exacting ideal! A _divine_ ideal! And, as
a matter of fact, they say that the moralist thus imitates a model
which is no less than God Himself: God, the greatest Immoralist in
deeds that exists, but who nevertheless understands how to remain what
He _is,_ the _good_ God....


305.

The dominion of virtue is not established by means of virtue itself;
with virtue itself, one renounces power, one loses the Will to Power.


306.

The victory of a moral ideal is achieved by the same "immoral" means as
any other victory: violence, lies, slander, injustice.


307.

He who knows the way fame originates will be suspicious even of the
fame virtue enjoys.


308.

Morality is just as "immoral" as any other thing on earth; morality is
in itself a form of immorality.

The great _relief_ which this conviction brings. The contradiction
between things disappears, the unity of all phenomena is _saved----_


309.

There are some who actually go in search of what is immoral. When they
say: "this is wrong," they believe it ought to be done away with
or altered. On the other hand, I do not rest until I am quite clear
concerning the _immorality_ of any particular thing which happens to
come under my notice. When I discover it, I recover my equanimity.


310.


A. _The ways which lead to power_: the presentation of the new virtue
under the name of an _old_ one,--the awakening of "interest" concerning
it ("happiness" declared to be its reward, and _vice versâ_),--artistic
slandering of all that stands in its way,--the exploitation of
advantages and accidents with the view of glorifying it,--the
conversion of its adherents into fanatics by means of sacrifices and
separations,--symbolism _on a grand scale_.

B. _Power attained_: (1) Means of constraint of virtue; (2) seductive
means of virtue; (3) the (court) etiquette of virtue.


311.


_By what means does a virtue attain to power?--_With precisely the
same means as a political party: slander, suspicion, the undermining of
opposing virtues that happen to be already in power, the changing of
their names, systematic persecution and scorn; in short, _by means of
acts of general "immorality."_

How does a _desire_ behave towards itself in order to become a
_virtue_?--A process of rechristening; systematic denial of its
intentions; practice in misunderstanding itself; alliance with
established and recognised virtues; ostentatious enmity towards its
adversaries. If possible, too, the protection of sacred powers must be
purchased; people must also be intoxicated and fired with enthusiasm;
idealistic humbug must be used, and a party must be won, which _either_
triumphs _or_ perishes--one must be _unconscious and naïf_.


312.

Cruelty has become transformed and elevated into tragic pity, so that
we no longer recognise it as such. The same has happened to the love
of the sexes which has become amour-passion; the slavish attitude of
mind appears as Christian obedience; wretchedness becomes humility;
the disease of the _nervus sympathicus,_ for instance, is eulogised as
Pessimism, Pascalism, or Carlylism, etc.


313.

We should begin to entertain doubts concerning a man if we heard that
he required reasons in order to remain respectable: we should, in any
case, certainly avoid his society. The little word "for" in certain
cases may be compromising; sometimes a single "for" is enough to
refute one. If we should hear, in course of time, that such-and-such
an aspirant for virtue was in need of _bad_ reasons in order to remain
respectable, it would not conduce to increasing our respect for him.
But he goes further; he comes to us, and tells us quite openly: "You
disturb my morality, with your disbelief, Mr. Sceptic; so long as you
cannot believe in my _bad reasons,_--that is to say, in my God, in a
disciplinary Beyond, in free will, etc.,--you put obstacles in the way
of my virtue.... Moral, sceptics must be suppressed: they prevent the
_moralisation of the masses_."


314.

Our most sacred convictions, those which are permanent in us concerning
the highest values, are _judgments emanating from our muscles._


315.

_Morality in the valuation of races and classes.--_In view of the fact
that the _passions_ and _fundamental instincts_ in every race and class
express the means which enable the latter to preserve themselves (or at
least the means which have enabled them to live for the longest period
of time), to call them "virtuous" practically means:

That they change their character, shed their skins, and blot out their
past.

It means that they should cease from differentiating themselves from
others.

It means that they are getting to resemble each other in their needs
and aspirations--or, more exactly, _that they are declining...._

It means that the will to one kind of morality is merely the _tyranny_
of the particular species, which is adapted to that kind of morality,
over other species: it means a process of annihilation or general
levelling in favour of the prevailing species (whether it be to
render the non-prevailing species harmless, or to exploit them); the
"Abolition of Slavery"--a so-called tribute to "human dignity"; in
truth, the _annihilation_ of a fundamentally different species (the
undermining of its values and its happiness).

The qualities which constitute the strength of an _opposing race_ or
class are declared to be the most evil and pernicious things it has:
for by means of them it may be harmful to us (its virtues are slandered
and rechristened).

When a man or a people harm us, their action constitutes an objection
against them: but from their point of view we are desirable, because we
are such as can be useful to them.

The insistence upon spreading "humaneness" (which guilelessly starts
out with the assumption that it is in possession of the formula "What
is human") is all humbug, beneath the cover of which a certain definite
type of man strives to attain to power: or, more precisely, a very
particular kind of instinct--the _gregarious instinct._ "The equality
of men": this is what lies _concealed_ behind the tendency of _making_
ever more and more men _alike_ as men.

_The "interested nature" of the morality of ordinary people._ (The
trick was to elevate the great passions for power and property to the
positions of protectors of virtue.)

To what extent do all kinds of _business men_ and money-grabbers--all
those who give and take credit--find it _necessary_ to promote the
levelling of all characters and notions of value? the _commerce and the
exchange of the world_ leads to, and almost purchases, virtue.

The _State_ exercises the same influence, as does also any sort of
ruling power at the head of officials and soldiers; _science_ acts in
the same way, in order that it may work in security and economise its
forces. And the _priesthood_ does the same.

Communal morality is thus promoted here, because it is advantageous;
and, in order to make it triumph, war and violence are waged against
immorality--with what "right"? Without any right whatsoever; but in
accordance with the instinct of self-preservation. The same classes
avail themselves of immorality when it serves their purpose to do so.


316.

Observe the hypocritical colour which all _civil institutions_ are
painted, just as if they were _the offshoots of morality_--for
instance: marriage, work, calling, patriotism, the family, order,
and rights. But as they were all established in favour of the _most
mediocre_ type of man, to protect him from exceptions and the need of
exceptions, one must not be surprised to find them sown with lies.


317.

_Virtue_ must be defended against its preachers: they are its worst
enemies. For they teach virtue as an ideal _for all_; they divest
virtue of the charm which consists in its rareness, its inimitableness,
its exceptional and non-average character--that is to say, of its
_aristocratic charm._ A stand must also be made against those
embittered idealists who eagerly tap all pots and are satisfied to
hear them ring hollow: what ingenuousness--to _demand_ great and rare
things, and then to declare, with anger and contempt of one's fellows,
that they do not exist!--It is obvious, for instance, that a _marriage_
is worth only as much as those are worth whom it joins--that is to say,
that on the whole it is something wretched and indecent: no priest or
registrar can make anything else of it.

_Virtue_[6] has all the instincts of the average man against it: it is
not profitable, it is not prudent, and it isolates. It is related to
passion, and not very accessible to reason; it spoils the character,
the head, and the senses--always, of course, subject to the medium
standard of men; it provokes hostility towards order, and towards the
_lies_ which are concealed beneath all order, all institutions, and
all reality--when seen in the light of its pernicious influence upon
_others,_ it is _the worst of vices_.

I recognise virtue in that: (1) it does not insist upon being
recognised; (2) it does not presuppose the existence of virtue
everywhere, but precisely something else; (3) it does _not suffer_
from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather as a relation of
perspective which throws virtue into relief: it does not proclaim
itself; (4) it makes no propaganda; (5) it allows no one to pose as
judge because it is always a _personal_ virtue; (6) it does precisely
what is generally _forbidden_: virtue as I understand it is the actual
_vetitum_ within all gregarious legislation; (7) in short, I recognise
virtue in that it is in the Renaissance style--_virtù_--free from all
moralic acid....


[Footnote 6: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--Virtue is used here, of course, in the
sense of "the excellence of man," not in the sense of the Christian
negative virtue.]


318.

In the first place[7] Messrs. Virtue-mongers, you have no superiority
over us; we should like to make you take _modesty_ a little more to
heart: it is wretched personal interests and prudence which suggest
your virtue to you. And if you had more strength and courage in your
bodies you would not lower yourselves thus to the level of virtuous
nonentities. You make what you can of yourselves: partly what you are
obliged to make,--that is to say, what your circumstances force you
to _make,_--partly what suits your pleasure and seems useful to you.
But if you do only what is in keeping with your inclinations, or
what necessity exacts from you, or what is useful to you, you ought
_neither to praise yourselves nor let others praise you_!... One is
a _thoroughly puny kind of man_ when one is _only_ virtuous: nothing
should mislead you in this regard! Men who have to be considered at
all, were never such donkeys of virtue: their inmost instinct, that
which determined their quantum of power, did not find its reckoning
thus: whereas with your minimum amount of power nothing can seem more
full of wisdom to you than virtue. But the _multitude_ are on your
side: and because you _tyrannise_ over us, we shall fight you....


[Footnote 7: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--Here Nietzsche returns to Christian
virtue which is negative and moral.]


319.

A _virtuous man_ is of a lower species because, in the first place,
he has no "personality," but acquires his value by conforming with a
certain human scheme which has been once and for ever fixed. He has no
independent value: he may be compared; he has his equals, he _must_ not
be an individual.

Reckoning up the qualities of the _good_ man, why is it they appear
pleasant to us? Because they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to
caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to severity: our laziness,
our good nature, and our levity, have a _good time._ This, our _feeling
of well-being,_ is _what we project into_ the good man in the form of a
_quality,_ in the form of a _valuable possession._


320.

Under certain circumstances, virtue is merely a venerable form of
stupidity: who could blame you for it? And this form of virtue has not
been outlived even to-day. A sort of honest peasant-simplicity, which
is possible, however, in all classes of society, and which one cannot
meet with anything else than a respectful smile, still thinks to-day
that everything is in good hands--that is to say, in "God's hands": and
when it supports this proposition with that same modest assurance as
that with which it would assert that two and two are four, we others
naturally refrain from contradiction.

Why disturb _this_ pure foolery? Why darken it with our cares
concerning man, people, goals, the future? Even if we wished to
do so, we shouldn't succeed. _In_ all things these people see the
reflection of their own venerable stupidity and goodness (in them the
old God--_deus myops--_ still lives); we others see something else in
everything: our problematic nature, our contradictions, our deeper,
more painful, and more suspicious wisdom.


321.

He who finds a particular virtue an easy matter, ultimately laughs at
it. Seriousness cannot be maintained once virtue is attained. As soon
as a man has reached virtue, he jumps out of it--whither? Into devilry.

Meanwhile, how intelligent all our evil tendencies and impulses have
become! What an amount of inquisitiveness torments them! They are all
fishhooks of knowledge!


322.

The idea is to associate vice with something so terrible that at
last one is obliged to run away from it in order to be rid of its
associations. This is the well-known case of Tannhäuser. Tannhäuser,
brought to his wits' end by Wagnerian music, cannot endure life any
longer even in the company of Mrs. Venus: suddenly virtue begins to
have a charm for him; a Thuringian virgin goes up in price, and what
is even worse still, he shows a liking for Wolfram von Eschenbach's
melody....


323.

_The Patrons of Virtue._--Lust of property, lust of power, laziness,
simplicity, fear; all these things are interested in virtue; that is
why it stands so securely.


324.

_Virtue_ is no longer believed in; its powers of attraction are dead;
what is needed is some one who will once more bring it into the market
in the form of an outlandish kind of adventure and of dissipation. It
exacts too much extravagance and narrow-mindedness from its believers
to allow of conscience not being against it to-day. Certainly, for
people, without either consciences or scruples, this may constitute
its new charm: it is now what it has never been before--a vice.


325.

Virtue is still the most expensive vice: _let_ it remain so!


326.

Virtues are as dangerous as vices, in so far as they are allowed to
rule over one as authorities and laws coming from outside, and not as
qualities one develops one's self. The latter is the only right way;
they should be the most personal means of defence and most individual
needs--the determining factors of precisely _our_ existence and growth,
which we recognise and acknowledge independently of the question
whether others grow with us with the help of the same or of different
principles. This view of the danger of the virtue which is understood
as impersonal and _objective_ also holds good of modesty: through
modesty many of the choicest intellects perish. The morality of modesty
is the worst possible softening influence for those souls for which it
is pre-eminently necessary that they become _hard_ betimes.


327.

The domain of morality must be reduced and limited step by step; the
names of the instincts which are really active in this sphere must be
drawn into the light of day and honoured, after they have lain all
this time in the concealment of hypocritical names of virtue. Out of
respect for one's "honesty," which makes itself heard ever more and
more imperiously, one ought to unlearn the shame which makes one deny
and "explain away" all natural instincts. The extent to which one can
dispense with virtue is the measure of one's strength; and a height may
be imagined where the notion "virtue" is understood in such a way as
to be reminiscent of _virtù_--the virtue of the Renaissance--free from
moralic acid. But for the moment--how remote this ideal seems!

_The reduction of the domain of morality_ is a sign of its progress.
Wherever, hitherto, thought has not been guided by causality, thinking
has taken a _moral_ turn.


328.

After all, what have I achieved? Let us not close our eyes to this
wonderful result: I have lent new _charms_ to virtue--it now affects
one in the same way as something _forbidden._ It has our most subtle
honesty against it, it is salted in the "_cum grano salis_" of the
scientific pang of conscience. It savours of antiquity and of old
fashion, and thus it is at last beginning to draw refined people and
to make them inquisitive--in short, it affects us like a vice. Only
after we have once recognised that everything consists of lies and
appearance, shall we have again earned the right to uphold this most
beautiful of all fictions--virtue. There will then remain no further
reason to deprive ourselves of it: only when we have shown virtue to
be a _form of immorality_ do we again _justify it,_--it then becomes
classified, and likened, in its fundamental features, to the profound
and general immorality of all existence, of which it is then shown to
be a part. It appears as a form of luxury of the first order, the most
arrogant, the dearest, and rarest form of vice. We have robbed it of
its grimaces and divested it of its drapery; we have delivered it from
the importunate familiarity of the crowd; we have deprived it of its
ridiculous rigidity, its empty expression, its stiff false hair, and
its hieratic muscles.


329.

And is it supposed that I have thereby done any harm to virtue?... Just
as little as anarchists do to princes. Only since they have been shot
at, have they once more sat securely on their thrones.... For thus
it has always been and will ever be: one cannot do a thing a better
service than to persecute it and to run it to earth.... This--I have
done.



5. THE MORAL IDEAL.


A. _A Criticism of Ideals._



330.

It were the thing to begin this criticism in suchwise as to do away
with the word "_Ideal_": a criticism of _desiderata._


331.

Only the fewest amongst us are aware of what is involved, from the
standpoint of _desirability,_ in every "thus should it be, but it
is not," or even "thus it ought to have been": such expressions of
opinion involve a condemnation of the whole course of events. For
there is nothing quite isolated in the world: the smallest thing bears
the largest on its back; on thy small injustice the whole nature of
the future depends; the whole is condemned by every criticism which
is directed at the smallest part of it. Now granting that the moral
norm--even as Kant understood it--is never completely fulfilled, and
remains like a sort of Beyond hanging over reality without ever falling
down to it; then morality would contain in itself a judgment concerning
the whole, which would still, however, allow of the question: _whence
does it get the right thereto?_ How does the part come to acquire this
judicial position relative to the whole? And if, as some have declared,
this moral condemnation of, and dissatisfaction with, reality, is
an ineradicable instinct, is it not possible that this instinct may
perhaps belong to the ineradicable stupidities and immodesties of our
species?--But in saying this, we are doing precisely what we deprecate;
the point of view of desirability and of unauthorised fault-finding
is part and parcel of the whole character of worldly phenomena just
as every injustice and imperfection is--it is our very notion of
"perfection" which is never gratified. Every instinct which desires
to be indulged gives expression to its dissatisfaction with the
present state of things: how? Is the whole perhaps made up of a host
of dissatisfied parts, which all have desiderata in their heads? Is
the "course of things" perhaps "the road hence? the road leading away
from reality "--that is to say, eternal dissatisfaction in itself? Is
the conception of desiderata perhaps the essential motive-power of all
things? Is it--_deus_?

***

It seems to me of the utmost importance that we should rid ourselves
of the notion of _the_ whole, of an entity, and of any kind of power
or form of the unconditioned. For we shall never be able to resist the
temptation of regarding it as the supreme being, and of christening
it "God." The "All" must be subdivided; we must unlearn our respect
for it, and reappropriate that which we have lent the unknown and an
imaginary entity, for the purposes of our neighbour and ourselves.
Whereas, for instance, Kant said: "Two things remain for ever worthy
of honour" (at the close of his _Practical Reason_)--to-day we should
prefer to say: "Digestion is more worthy of honour." The concept,
"the All," will always give rise to the old problems, "How is evil
possible?" etc. Therefore, _there is no "All",_ there _is no_ great
_sensorium_ or _inventarium_ or power-magazine.


332.

A man as he _ought_ to be: this sounds to me in just as bad taste as:
"A tree as it ought to be."


333.

Ethics: or the "philosophy of desirability."--"Things _ought_ to be
otherwise," "things _ought_ to become different": dissatisfaction
would thus seem the heart of ethics.

One could find a way out of it, first, by selecting only those states
in which one is free from emotion; secondly, by grasping the insolence
and stupidity of the attitude of mind: for to desire that something
should be otherwise than it is, means to desire that _everything_
should be different--it involves a damaging criticism of the whole.
_But life itself consists in such desiring!_

To ascertain _what exists, how it exists_ seems an ever so much higher
and more serious matter than every "thus should it be," because the
latter, as a piece of human criticism and arrogance, appears to be
condemned as ludicrous from the start. It expresses a need which would
fain have the organisation of the world correspond with our human
well-being, and which directs the will as much as possible towards the
accomplishment of that relationship.

On the other hand, this desire, "thus it ought to be," has only called
forth that other desire, "_what exists?_" The desire of knowing what
exists, is already a consequence of the question, "how? is it possible?
Why precisely so?" Our wonder at the disagreement between our desires
and the course of the world has led to our learning to know the
course of the world. Perhaps the matter stands differently: maybe the
expression, "thus it ought to be," is merely the utterance of our
desire to overcome the world----


334.

To-day when every attempt at determining how man should be--is
received with some irony, when we adhere to the notion that in spite
of all one only _becomes_ what one _is_(in spite of all--that is to
say, education, instruction, environment, accident, and disaster),
in the matter of morality we have learnt, in a very peculiar way,
how to _reverse_ the relation of cause and effect. Nothing perhaps
distinguishes us more than this from the ancient believers in morality.
We no longer say, for instance, "Vice is the cause of a man's
physical ruin," and we no longer say, "A man prospers with virtue
because it brings a long life and happiness." Our minds to-day are
much more inclined to the belief that vice and virtue are not causes
but only _effects._ A man becomes a respectable member of society
because he _was_ a respectable man from the start--that is to say,
because he was born in possession of good instincts and prosperous
propensities.... Should a man enter the world poor, and the son of
parents who are neither economical nor thrifty, he is insusceptible
of being improved--that is to say, he is only fit for the prison or
the madhouse.... To-day we are no longer able to separate moral from
physical degeneration: the former is merely a complicated symptom of
the latter; a man is necessarily bad just as he is necessarily ill....
Bad: this word here stands for a certain _lack of capacity_ which is
related physiologically with the degenerating type--for instance, a
weak will, an uncertain and many-sided personality, the inability to
resist reacting to a stimulus and to control one's self, and a certain
constraint resulting from every suggestion proceeding from another's
will. Vice is not a cause; it is an _effect._ ... Vice is a somewhat
arbitrary-epitome of certain effects resulting from physiological
degeneracy. A general proposition such as that which Christianity
teaches, namely, "Man is evil," would be justified provided one were
justified in regarding a given type of degenerate man as normal. But
this may be an exaggeration. Of course, wherever Christianity prospers
and prevails, the proposition holds good: for then the existence of an
unhealthy soil--of a degenerate territory--is demonstrated.


335.

It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man, when one sees how
he understands the art of fighting his way, of enduring, of turning
circumstances to his own advantage, and of overthrowing opponents;
but when he is seen in the light of his _desires,_ he is the most
absurd of all animals. It is just as if he required a playground
for his cowardice, his laziness, his feebleness, his sweetness, his
submissiveness, where he recovers from his strong virile virtues. Just
look at man's "_desiderata_" and his "ideals." Man, when he _desires,
_ tries to recover from that which is eternally valuable in him, from
his deeds; and then he rushes into nonentity, absurdity, valuelessness,
childishness. The intellectual indigence and lack of inventive power of
this resourceful and inventive animal is simply terrible. The "ideal"
is at the same time the penalty man pays for the enormous expenditure
which he has to defray in all real and pressing duties.--Should reality
cease to prevail, there follow dreams, fatigue, weakness: an "ideal"
might even be regarded as a form of dream, fatigue, or weakness. The
strongest and the most impotent men become alike when this condition
overtakes them: they _deify_ the cessation of work, of war, of
passions, of suspense, of contrasts, of "reality "--in short, of the
struggle for knowledge and of the _trouble_ of acquiring it.

"Innocence" to them is idealised stultification; "blessedness" is
idealised idleness; "love," the ideal state of the gregarious animal
that will no longer have an enemy. And thus everything that lowers and
belittles man is elevated to an _ideal_.


336.

A desire _magnifies_ the thing desired; and by not being realised it
grows--the _greatest ideas_ are those which have been created by the
strongest and longest desiring. Things grow _ever more valuable_ in our
estimation, the more our desire for them increases: if "moral values"
have become the highest values, it simply shows that the moral ideal
is the one which has been _realised least_ (and thus it _represented
the Beyond to all suffering,_ as a road to _blessedness_). Man,
with ever-increasing ardour, has only been embracing _clouds_: and
ultimately called his desperation and impotence "God."


337.

Think of the _naïveté_ of all ultimate "desiderata"--when the
"wherefore" of man remains unknown.


338.

What is the counterfeit coinage of morality? First of all we should
know what "good and evil" mean. That is as good as wishing to know why
man is here, and what his goal or his destiny is. And that means that
one would fain know that man actually _has_ a goal or a destiny.

The very obscure and arbitrary notion that humanity has a general
duty to perform, and that, as a whole, it is striving towards a
goal, is still in its infancy. Perhaps we shall once more be rid
of it before it becomes a "fixed idea." ... But humanity does not
constitute a whole: it is an indissoluble multiplicity of ascending
and descending organisms--it knows no such thing as a state of youth
followed by _maturity_ and then age. But its strata lie confused and
superimposed--and in a few thousand years there may be even younger
types of men than we can point out to-day. Decadence, on the other
hand, belongs to all periods of human history: everywhere there is
refuse and decaying matter, such things are in themselves vital
processes; for withering and decaying elements must be eliminated.

Under the empire of Christian prejudice _this question was never put
at all_: the purpose of life seemed to lie in the salvation of the
individual soul; the question whether humanity might last for a long or
a short time was not considered. The best Christians longed for the end
to come as soon as possible;--concerning the needs of the individual,
_there seemed to be no doubt whatsoever._ ... The duty of every
individual for the present was identical with what it would be in any
sort of future for the man of the future: the value, the purpose, the
limit of values was for ever fixed, unconditioned, eternal, one with
God.... What deviated from this eternal type was impious, diabolic,
criminal.

The centre of gravity of all values for each soul lay in that soul
itself: salvation or damnation! The salvation of the _immortal_ soul!
The most extreme form of _personalisation...._ For each soul there
was only one kind of perfection; only one ideal, only one road to
salvation.... The most extreme form of the principle of _equal rights,_
associated with an optical magnification of individual importance to
the point of megalomania.... Nothing but insanely important souls,
revolving round their own axes with unspeakable terror....

***

Nobody believes in these assumed airs of importance any longer
to-day: and we have sifted our wisdom through the sieve of contempt.
Nevertheless the _optical habit_ survives, which would fain measure the
value of man by his proximity to a certain _ideal maw._ at bottom the
personalisation view is upheld as firmly as that of the _equality of
rights as regards the ideal._ In short: people _seem to think that they
know_ what _the ultimate desideratum_ is in regard to the ideal man....

But this belief is merely the result of the exceedingly _detrimental
influence_ of the Christian ideal, as anybody can discover for himself
every time he carefully examines the "ideal type." In the first place,
it is believed that the approach to a given "type" is desirable;
_secondly,_ that this particular type is known; _thirdly,_ that every
deviation from this type is a retrograde movement, a stemming of the
spirit of progress, a loss of power and might in man.... To dream of a
state of affairs in which this _perfect_ man will be in the majority:
our friends the Socialists and even Messrs. the Utilitarians have not
reached a higher level than this. In this way an _aim_ seems to have
crept into the _evolution_ of man: at any rate the belief in a certain
_progress towards an ideal_ is the only shape in which an _aim_ is
conceived in the history of mankind to-day. In short: the coming of the
"_Kingdom of God_" has been placed in the future, and has been given an
earthly, a human meaning--but on the whole the faith in the _old_ ideal
is still maintained....


340.

_The more concealed forms of the cult of Christian, moral ideals._--The
_insipid and cowardly notion "Nature"_ invented by Nature-enthusiasts
(without any knowledge whatsoever of the terrible, the implacable,
and the cynical element in even "the most beautiful" aspects), is
only a sort of attempt at _reading_ the moral and Christian notion of
"humanity" into Nature;--Rousseau's concept of Nature, for instance,
which took for granted that "Nature" meant freedom, goodness,
innocence, equity, justice, and _Idylls,_ was nothing more at bottom
than the cult of Christian morality. We should collect passages from
the poets in order to see _what_ they admired, in lofty mountains, for
instance. What Goethe had to do with them--why he admired Spinoza.
Absolute _ignorance_ concerning the reasons of this _cult...._

The _insipid and cowardly concept "Man"_ à la Comte and Stuart
Mill, is at times the subject of a cult.... This is only the
Christian moral ideal again under another name.... Refer also to the
freethinkers--Guyau for example.

The _insipid and cowardly concept "Art"_ which is held to mean sympathy
with all suffering and with everything botched and bungled (the same
thing happens to _history,_ cf. Thierry): again it is the cult of the
Christian moral ideal.

And now, as to the whole _socialistic ideal_: it is nothing but a
blockheaded misunderstanding of the Christian moral ideal.


341.

_The origin of the ideal._ The examination of the soil out of which it
grows.

_A._ Starting out from those "æsthetic" mental states during which the
world seems rounder, fuller, and _more perfect_: we have the pagan
ideal with its dominating spirit of self-affirmation (_people give of
their abundance_). The highest type: the _classical_ ideal--regarded
as an expression of the successful nature of _all_ the more important
instincts. In this classical ideal we find _the grand style_ as the
highest style. An expression of the "will to power" itself. The
instinct which is most feared _dares to acknowledge itself._

_B._ Starting out from the mental states in which the world seemed
emptier, paler, and thinner, when "spiritualisation" and the absence
of sensuality assume the rank of perfection, and when all that is
brutal, animal, direct, and proximate is avoided (_people calculate
and select_): the "sage," "the angel"; priestliness = virginity =
ignorance, are the physiological ideals of such idealists: the _anæmic_
ideal. Under certain circumstances this anæmic ideal may be the ideal
of such natures as _represent_ paganism (thus Goethe sees his "saint"
in Spinoza).

_C._ Starting out from those mental states in which the world seemed
more absurd, more evil, poorer, and more deceptive, an ideal cannot
even be imagined or desired in it (_people deny and annihilate_);
the projection of the ideal into the sphere of the anti-natural,
anti-actual, anti-logical; the state of him who judges thus (the
"impoverishment" of the world as a result of suffering: _people take,
they no longer bestow_): the _anti-natural ideal._

(The _Christian ideal_ is a _transitional form_ between the second
and the third, now inclining more towards the former type, and anon
inclining towards the latter.)

_The three ideals: A._ Either a _strengthening_ of Life (_paganism,_)
or _B._ an _impoverishment_ of Life (_anæmia_), or _C._ a _denial_ of
Life (_anti-naturalism_). The state of beatitude in _A._ is the feeling
of extreme abundance; in _B._ it is reached by the most fastidious
selectiveness; in _C._ it is the contempt and the destruction of Life.


342.

_A._ The _consistent_ type understands that even evil must not be
hated, must not be resisted, and that it is not allowable to make war
against one's self; that it does not suffice merely to accept the pain
which such behaviour brings in its train; that one lives entirely in
positive feelings; that one takes the side of one's opponents in word
and deed; that by means of a superfœtation of peaceful, kindly,
conciliatory, helpful, and loving states, one impoverishes the soil of
the other states, ... that one is in need of unremitting _practice._
What is achieved thereby?--The Buddhistic type, or the _perfect_ cow.

This point of view is possible only where no moral fanaticism
prevails--that is to say, when evil is not hated on its own account,
but because it opens the road to conditions which are painful (unrest,
work, care, complications, dependence).

This is the Buddhistic point of view: there is no hatred of sin, the
concept "sin," in fact, is entirely lacking.

_B._ The _inconsistent_ type. War is waged against evil--there is a
belief that war waged _for Goodness' sake_ does not involve the same
moral results or affect character in the same way as war generally
does (and owing to which tendencies it is detested as _evil)._ As a
matter of fact, a war of this sort carried on against evil is much
more profoundly pernicious than any sort of personal hostility; and
generally, it is "the person" which reassumes, at least in fancy, the
position of opponent (the devil, evil spirits, etc.). The attitude of
hostile observation and spying in regard to everything which may be
bad in us, or hail from a bad source, culminates in a most tormented
and most anxious state of mind: thus "miracles," rewards, ecstasy, and
transcendental solutions of the earth-riddle now became _desirable_.
... The Christian type: or the _perfect bigot_.

_C._ The _stoical_ type. Firmness, self-control, imperturbability,
peace in the form of the rigidity of a will long active--profound
quiet, the defensive state, the fortress, the mistrust of war--firmness
of principles; the unity of _knowledge_ and _will_; great self-respect.
The type of the anchorite. _The perfect blockhead._


343.

An ideal which is striving to prevail or to assert itself endeavours
to further its purpose _(a)_ by laying claim to a _spurious_ origin;
_(b)_ by assuming a relationship between itself and the powerful ideals
already existing; _(c)_ by means of the thrill produced by mystery,
as though an unquestionable power were manifesting itself; _(d)_ by
the slander of its opponents' ideals; _(e)_ by a lying teaching of
the advantages which follow in its wake, for instance: happiness,
spiritual peace, general peace, or even the assistance of a mighty
God, etc.--Contributions to the psychology of the idealists: Carlyle,
Schiller, Michelet.

Supposing all the means of defence and protection, by means of which an
ideal survives, are discovered, is it thereby _refuted_? It has merely
availed itself of the means of which everything lives and grows--they
are all "immoral."

My view: all the forces and instincts which are the source of life
are lying beneath the _ban of morality_: morality is the life-denying
instinct. Morality must be annihilated if life is to be emancipated.


344.

To _avoid_ knowing himself is the prudence of the idealist. The
idealist: a creature who has reasons for remaining in the dark
concerning himself, and who is also clever enough to remain in the dark
concerning these reasons also.


345.

_The tendency of moral evolution._--Every one's desire is that there
should be no other teaching and valuation of things than those by means
of which he himself succeeds. Thus the _fundamental tendency_ of the
_weak_ and _mediocre_ of all times, has been to _enfeeble the strong
and to reduce them to the level of the weak: their chief weapon in this
process_ was the _moral principle._ The attitude of the strong towards
the weak is branded as evil; the highest states of the strong become
bad bywords.

The struggle of the many against the strong, of the ordinary against
the extraordinary, of the weak against the strong: meets with one
of its finest interruptions in the fact that the rare, the refined,
the more exacting, present themselves as the weak, and repudiate the
coarser weapons of power.


346.

(1) The so-called pure instinct for knowledge of all philosophers
is dictated to them by their moral "truths," and is only seemingly
independent.

(2) The "Moral Truths," "thus shall things be done," are mere states
of consciousness of an instinct which has grown tired, "thus and thus
are things done by us." The "ideal" is supposed to re-establish and
strengthen an instinct; it flatters man to feel he can obey when he is
only an automaton.


347.

_Morality as a means of seduction._--"Nature is good; for a wise
and good God is its cause. Who, therefore, is responsible for the
'corruption of man'? Tyrants and seducers and the ruling classes are
responsible--they must be wiped out": this is Rousseau's logic (compare
with _Pascals_ logic, which concludes by an appeal to original sin).

Refer also to _Luther's_ logic, which is similar. In both cases a
pretext is sought for the introduction of an insatiable lust of revenge
as a _moral and religious_ duty. The hatred directed against the ruling
classes tries to _sanctify_ itself ... (the "sinfulness of Israel" is
the basis of the priest's powerful position).

Compare this with _Pauls_ logic, which is similar. It is always under
the cover of God's business that these reactions appear, under the
cover of what is right, or of humanity, etc. In the case of _Christ_
the rejoicings of the people appear as the cause of His crucifixion.
It was an anti-priestly movement from the beginning. Even in the
anti-Semitic movement we find the same trick: the opponent is overcome
with moral condemnations, and those who attack him pose as _retributive
Justice._


348.

_The incidents of the fight_: the fighter tries to transform his
opponent into the _exact opposite_ of himself--imaginatively, of
course. He tries to believe in himself to such an extent that he may
have the courage necessary for the "good Cause" (as if he were the
_good Cause_); as if reason, taste, and virtue were being assailed
by his opponents.... The belief of which he is most in need, as the
strongest means of defence and attack, _is the belief in himself,_
which, however, knows how to misinterpret itself as a belief in
God. He never pictures the advantages and the uses of victory, but
only understands victory for the sake of victory--for God's sake.
Every small community (or individual), finding itself involved in
a struggle, strives to convince itself of this: "_Good taste, good
judgment, and virtue are ours._" War urges people to this _exaggerated
self-esteem_....


349.

Whatever kind of _eccentric ideal_ one may have (whether as
a "Christian," a "free-spirit," an "immoralist," or a German
Imperialist), one should try to avoid insisting upon its being _the_
ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its privileged nature.
One should have an ideal as a distinction; one should not propagate it,
and thus level one's self down to the rest of mankind.

How is it, that in spite of this obvious fact, the majority of
idealists indulge in propaganda for their ideal, just as if they had
no right to it unless the _majority_ acquiesce therein?--For instance,
all those plucky and insignificant girls behave in this way, who claim
the right to study Latin and mathematics. What is it urges them to do
this? I fear it is the instinct of the herd, and the terror of the
herd: they fight for the "emancipation of woman," because they are best
able to achieve their own private little distinction by fighting for it
under the cover of a _charitable movement,_ under the banner bearing
the device "For others."

The _cleverness_ of idealists consists in their persistently posing
as the missionaries and "representatives" of an ideal: they thus
"beautify" themselves in the eyes of those who still believe in
disinterestedness and heroism. Whereas real heroism consists, _not_
in fighting under the banner of self-sacrifice, submission, and
disinterestedness, but in _not fighting at all_.... "I am thus; I will
be thus--and you can go to the devil!"


350.

_Every_ ideal assumes _love, hate, reverence,_ and _contempt._ Either
positive feeling is the _primum mobile,_ or negative feeling is.
_Hatred_ and _contempt_ are the _primum mobile_ in all the ideals which
proceed from resentment.

B. _A Criticism of the "Good Man" of the Saint, etc._


351.

The "_good man_" Or, hemiplegia of virtue.--In the opinion of every
strong and natural man, love and hate, gratitude and revenge, goodness
and anger, affirmative and negative action, belong to each other. A
man is good on condition that he knows how to be evil; a man is evil,
because otherwise he would not know how to be good. Whence comes
the morbidness and ideological unnaturalness which repudiates these
compounds--which teaches a sort of one-sided efficiency as the highest
of all things? Whence this hemiplegia of virtue, the invention of the
good man? The object seems to be to make man amputate those instincts
which enable him to be an enemy, to be harmful, to be angry, and to
insist upon revenge.... This unnaturalness, then, corresponds to that
dualistic concept of a wholly good and of a wholly bad creature (God,
Spirit, Man); in the first are found all the positive, in the second
all the negative forces, intentions, and states. This method of valuing
thus believes itself to be "idealistic"; it never doubts that in its
concept of the "good man," it has found the highest desideratum. When
aspiring to its zenith it fancies a state in which all evil is wiped
out, and in which only good creatures have actually remained over.
It does not therefore regard the mutual dependence of the opposites
good and evil as proved. On the contrary, the latter ought to vanish,
and the former should remain. The first has a right to exist, the
second ought not _to be with us at all...._ What, as a matter of fact,
is the reason of this desire? In all ages, and particularly in the
Christian age, much labour has been spent in trying to reduce men
to this one-sided activity: and even to-day, among those who have
been deformed and weakened by the Church, people are not lacking who
desire precisely the same thing with their "humanisation" generally,
or with their "Will of God," or with their "Salvation of the Soul."
The principal injunction behind all these things is, that man should
no longer do anything evil, that he should under no circumstances be
harmful or _desire_ harm. The way to arrive at this state of affairs is
to amputate all hostile tendencies, to suppress all the instincts of
resentment, and to establish "spiritual peace" as a chronic disease.

This attitude of mind, in which a certain type of man is bred,
starts out with this absurd hypothesis: good and evil are postulated
as realities which are in a state of mutual contradiction (not as
complementary values, which they are), people are advised to take the
side of the good, and it is insisted upon that a good man resists
and forswears evil until every trace of it is uprooted--_but with
this valuation Life is actually denied,_ for in all its instincts
Life has both yea and nay. But far from understanding these facts,
this valuation dreams rather of returning to the wholeness, oneness,
and strengthfulness of Life: it actually believes that a state of
blessedness will be reached when the inner anarchy and state of unrest
which result from these opposed impulses is brought to an end.--It is
possible that no more dangerous ideology, no greater mischief _in the
science of psychology,_ has ever yet existed, as this will to good: the
most repugnant type of man has been reared, the man who is _not free,_
the bigot; it was taught that only in the form of a bigot could one
tread the path which leads to God, and that only a bigot's life could
be a godly life.

And even here, Life is still in the right--Life that knows not how to
separate Yea from Nay: what is the good of declaring with all one's
might that war is an evil, that one must harm no one, that one must
not act negatively? One is still waging a war even in this, it is
impossible to do otherwise! The good man who has renounced all evil,
and who is afflicted according to his desire with the hemiplegia of
virtue, does not therefore cease from waging war, or from making
enemies, or from saying "nay" and doing "nay." The Christian, for
instance, hates "sin"!--and what on earth is there which he does
not call "sin"! It is precisely because of his belief in a moral
antagonism between good and evil, that the world for him has grown
so full of hatefulness and things that must be combated eternally.
The "good man" sees himself surrounded by evil, and, thanks to the
continual onslaughts of the latter, his eye grows more keen, and in
the end discovers traces of evil in every one of his acts. And thus he
ultimately arrives at the conclusion, which to him is quite logical,
that Nature is evil, that man is corrupted, and that being good is an
act of grace (that is to say, it is impossible to man when he stands
alone). In short: _he denies Life,_ he sees how "good," as the highest
value, _condemns_ Life.... And thus his ideology concerning good and
evil ought to strike him as refuted. But one cannot refute a disease.
Therefore he is obliged to conceive _another_ life!...


352.

Power, whether in the hands of a god or of a man, is always understood
to consist in the ability to _harm_ as well as to _help._ This is the
case with the Arabs and with the Hebrews, in fact with all strong and
well-constituted races.

The dualistic separation of the two powers is fatal.... In this way
morality becomes the poisoner of life.


353.

_A criticism of the good man._--Honesty, dignity, dutifulness, justice,
humanity, loyalty, uprightness, clean conscience--is it really supposed
that, by means of these fine-sounding words, the qualities they stand
for are approved and affirmed for their own sake? Or is it this, that
qualities and states indifferent in themselves have merely been looked
at in a light which lends them some value? Does the worth of these
qualities lie in themselves, or in the use and advantages to which they
lead (or to which they seem to lead, to which they are expected to
lead)?

I naturally do not wish to imply that there is any opposition between
the _ego_ and the _alter_ in the judgment: the question is, whether
it is the _results_ of these qualities, either in regard to him who
possesses them or in regard to environment, society, "humanity," which
lend them their value; or whether they have a value in themselves....
In other words: is it _utility_ which bids men condemn, combat, and
deny the opposite qualities (duplicity, falseness, perversity, lack
of self-confidence, inhumanity)? Is the essence of such qualities
condemned, or only their consequences? In other words: were it
_desirable_ that there should exist no men at all possessed of such
qualities? _In any case, this is believed_.... But here lies the error,
the shortsightedness, the monocularity of _narrow egoism._

Expressed otherwise: would it be desirable to create circumstances in
which the whole advantage would be on the side of the just--so that
all those with opposite natures and instincts would be discouraged and
would slowly become extinct?

At bottom, this is a question of taste and of _æsthetics_: should we
desire the most honourable types of men--that is to say, the greatest
bores--alone to subsist? the rectangular, the virtuous, the upright,
the good-natured, the straightforward, and the "blockheads"?

If one can imagine the total suppression of the huge number
constituting the "others," even the just man himself ceases from having
a right to exist,--he is, in fact, no longer necessary,--and in this
way it is seen that coarse utility alone could have elevated such an
_insufferable_ virtue to a place of honour.

Desirability may lie precisely on the other side. It might be better
to create conditions in which the "just man" would be reduced to
the humble position of a "useful instrument"--an "ideal gregarious
animal," or at best a herdsman: in short, conditions in which he would
no longer stand in the highest sphere, which requires _other qualities_.


354.

_The "good man" as a tyrant--_Mankind has always repeated the same
error: it has always transformed a mere vital measure into the
_measure_ and standard of life;--instead of seeking the standard in
the highest ascent of life, in the problem of growth and exhaustion,
it takes the _preservative measures_ of a very definite kind of life,
and uses them to exclude all other kinds of life, and even to criticise
Life itself and to select from among its forms. That is to say, man
ultimately forgets that measures are a means to an end, and gets to
like them for themselves: they take the place of a goal in his mind,
and even become the standard of goals to him--that is to say, _a given
species of man_ regards his means of existence as the only legitimate
means, as the means which ought to be imposed upon all, as "truth,"
"goodness," "perfection": the given species, in fact, begins to
_tyrannise._ ... It is a _form of faith,_ of instinct, when a certain
species of man does not perceive that his kind has been conditioned,
when he does not understand his relation to other species. At any rate,
any species of men (a people or a race) seems to be doomed as soon as
it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights, and no longer desires to be
master.


355.

"All good people are weak: they are good because they are not strong
enough to be evil," said the Latuka chieftain Comorro to Baker.

* * *

"Disasters are not to the faint-hearted," is a Russian proverb.


356.

Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate: thus you would that
men were?--that _good men_ were? But such men I can only conceive as
slaves, the slaves of the future.


357.

_The metamorphoses of slavery_; its disguise in the cloak of religion;
its transfiguration through morality.


358.

_The ideal slave_ (the "good man").--He who cannot regard himself
as a "purpose," and who cannot give himself any aim whatsoever,
instinctively honours the morality of _unselfishness._ Everything urges
him to this morality: his prudence, his experience, and his vanity. And
even faith is a form of self-denial.

***

_Atavism_: delightful feeling, to be able to obey unconditionally for
once.

***

Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance, are just so many
_obstacles_ in the way of _sovereign sentiments,_ of great _ingenuity,_
of an heroic purpose, of noble existence for one's self.

***

It is not a question of _going ahead_ (to that end all that is required
is to be at best a herdsman, that is to say, the prime need of the
herd), it is rather a matter of _getting along alone,_ of _being able
to be another._


359.

We must realise _all_ that has been accumulated as the result of
the highest moral _idealism_: how almost _all other values_ have
crystallised round it. This shows that it has been desired for _a very
long time_ and with the _strongest passions_--and that it has not yet
been attained: otherwise it would have _disappointed_ everybody (that
is to say, it would have been followed by a more moderate valuation).

The _saint_ as the _most powerful type_ of man: _this_ ideal it is
which has elevated the value of moral perfection so high. One would
think that the whole of science had been engaged in proving that the
_moral_ man is the most _powerful_ and most godly.--The conquest of the
senses and the passions--everything inspired _terror_;--the unnatural
seemed to the spectators to be _supernatural_ and _transcendental...._


360.

Francis of Assisi: amorous and popular, a poet who combats the order
of rank among souls, in favour of the lowest. The denial of spiritual
hierarchy--"all alike before God."

Popular ideals: the good man, the unselfish man, the saint, the sage,
the just man. O Marcus Aurelius!


361.

I have declared war against the anæmic Christian ideal (together with
what is closely _I_ related to it), not because I want to annihilate
it, but only to put an end to its _tyranny_ and clear the way for
other _ideals,_ for _more robust_ ideals.... The _continuance_ of the
Christian ideal belongs to the most desirable of desiderata: if only
for the sake of the ideals which wish to take their stand beside it and
perhaps above it--they must have opponents, and strong ones too, in
order to grow _strong_ themselves. That is why we immoralists require
the _power_ of _morality,_ our instinct of self-preservation insists
upon our opponents maintaining their strength--all it requires is to
_become master of them_.



C. _Concerning the Slander of the so-called Evil Qualities_.


362.

Egoism and its problem! The Christian gloominess of La Rochefoucauld,
who saw egoism in everything, and imagined that he had therefore
_reduced_ the worth of things and virtues! In opposition to him,
I first of all tried to show that nothing else _could_ exist save
egoism,--that in those men whose _ego_ is weak and thin, the power to
love also grows weak,--that the greatest lovers are such owing to the
strength of their _ego,_--that love is an expression of egoism, etc.
As a matter of fact, the false valuation aims at the interest of those
who find it useful, whom it helps--in fact, the herd; it fosters a
pessimistic mistrust towards the basis of Life; it would fain undermine
the most glorious and most well-constituted men (out of fear); it would
assist the lowly to have the upper hand of their conquerors; it is the
cause of universal dishonesty, especially in the most useful type of
men.


363.

Man is an indifferent egoist: even the cleverest regards his habits as
more important than his advantage.


364.

Egoism! But no one has yet asked: _what_ is the _ego_ like? Everybody
is rather inclined to see all _egos_ alike. This is the result of the
slave theory, of _universal suffrage,_ and of "equality."


365.

The behaviour of a higher man is the result of a very complex set of
motives: any word such as "pity" _betrays_ nothing of this complexity.
The most important factor is the feeling, "who am I? who is the other
relative to me?"--Thus the valuing spirit is continually active.


366.

To think that the history of all moral phenomena may be simplified, as
Schopenhauer thought,--that is to say, that _pity_ is to be found at
the root of every moral impulse that has ever existed hitherto,--is
to be guilty of a degree of nonsense and ingenuousness worthy only
of a thinker who is devoid of all historical instincts and who has
miraculously succeeded in evading the strong schooling in history which
the Germans, from Herder to Hegel, have undergone.


367.

_My "pity."_--This is a feeling for which I can find no adequate
term: I feel it when I am in the presence of any waste of precious
capabilities, as, for instance, when I contemplate Luther: what power
and what tasteless problems fit for back-woodsmen! (At a time when the
brave and light-hearted scepticism of a Montaigne was already possible
in France!) Or when I see some one standing below where he might have
stood, thanks to the development of a set of perfectly senseless
accidents. Or even when, with the thought of man's destiny in my mind,
I contemplate with horror and contempt the whole system of modern
European politics, which is creating the circumstances and weaving
the fabric of the _whole_ future of mankind. Yes, to what could not
"mankind" attain, if----! This is my "pity"; despite the fact that no
sufferer yet exists with whom I sympathise in this way.


368.

Pity is a waste of feeling, a moral parasite which is injurious to
the health, "it cannot possibly be our duty to increase the evil in
the world." If one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self and
not one's neighbour that one is succouring. Pity does not depend upon
maxims, but upon emotions. The suffering we see infects us; pity is an
infection.


369.

There is no such thing as egoism which keeps within its bounds and
does not exceed them--consequently, the "allowable," the "morally
indifferent" egoism of which some people speak, does not exist at all.

"One is continually promoting the interests of one's '_ego_' at the
cost of other people "; "Living consists in living at the cost of
others"--he who has not grasped this fact, has not taken the first step
towards truth to himself.


370.

The "subject" is a piece of fiction: the _ego_ of which every one
speaks when he blames egoism, does not exist at all.


371.

Our "ego"--which is _not_ one with the unitary controlling force of our
beings!--is really only an imagined synthesis; therefore there can _be_
no "_egoistic_" _actions_.


372.

Since all instincts are unintelligent, utility cannot represent a
standpoint as far as they are concerned. Every instinct, when it is
active, sacrifices strength and other instincts into the bargain: in
the end it is stemmed, otherwise it would be the end of everything
owing to the waste it would bring about. Thus: that which is
"unegoistic," self-sacrificing, and imprudent is nothing in particular
--it is common to all the instincts; they do not consider the welfare
of the whole _ego_ (_because they simply do not think!_), they act
counter to our interests, against the _ego_: and often _for_ the
_ego--_innocent in both cases!


373.

_The origin of moral values._--Selfishness has as much value as the
physiological value of him who possesses it. Each individual represents
the whole course of Evolution, and he is not, as morals teach,
something that begins at his birth. If he represent the _ascent_ of the
line of mankind, his value is, in fact, very great; and the concern
about his maintenance and the promoting of his growth may even be
extreme. (It is the concern about the promise of the future in him
which gives the well-constituted individual such an extraordinary right
to egoism.) If he represent _descending_ development, decay, chronic
sickening, he has little worth: and the greatest fairness would have
him take as little room, strength, and sunshine as possible from the
well-constituted. In this case society's duty is to _suppress egoism_
(for the latter may sometimes manifest itself in an absurd, morbid,
and seditious manner): whether it be a question of the decline and
pining away of single individuals or of whole classes of mankind. A
morality and a religion of "love," the _curbing_ of the self-affirming
spirit, and a doctrine encouraging patience, resignation, helpfulness,
and co-operation in word and deed may be of the highest value within
the confines of such classes, even in the eyes of their rulers:
for it restrains the feelings of rivalry, of resentment, and of
envy,--feelings which are only too natural in the bungled and the
botched,--and it even deifies them under the ideal of humility, of
obedience, of slave-life, of being ruled, of poverty, of illness, and
of lowliness. This explains why the ruling classes (or races) and
individuals of all ages have always upheld the cult of unselfishness,
the gospel of the lowly and of "God on the Cross."

The preponderance of an altruistic way of valuing is the result of
a consciousness of the fact that one is botched and bungled. Upon
examination, this point of view turns out to be: "I am not worth
much," simply a psychological valuation; more plainly still: it is
the feeling of impotence, of the lack of the great self-asserting
impulses of power (in muscles, nerves, and ganglia). This valuation
gets translated, according to the particular culture of these classes,
into a moral or religious principle (the pre-eminence of religious or
moral precepts is always a sign of low culture): it tries to justify
itself in spheres whence, as far as it is concerned, the notion "value"
hails. The interpretation by means of which the Christian sinner
tries to understand himself, is an attempt at justifying his lack of
power and of self-confidence: he prefers to feel himself a sinner
rather than feel bad for nothing: it is in itself a symptom of decay
when interpretations of this sort are used at all. In some cases the
bungled and the botched do not look for the reason of their unfortunate
condition in their own guilt (as the Christian does), but in society:
when, however, the Socialist, the Anarchist, and the Nihilist are
conscious that their existence is something for which some one must
be _guilty,_ they are very closely related to the Christian, who also
believes that he can more easily endure his ill ease and his wretched
constitution when he has found some one whom he can hold _responsible_
for it. The instinct of _revenge_ and _resentment_ appears in both
cases here as a means of enduring life, as a self-preservative measure,
as is also the favour shown to _altruistic_ theory and practice. The
_hatred of egoism,_ whether it be one's own (as in the case of the
Christian), or another's (as in the case of the Socialists), thus
appears as a valuation reached under the predominance of revenge; and
also as an act of prudence on the part of the preservative instinct
of the suffering, in the form of an increase in their feelings of
co-operation and unity.... At bottom, as I have already suggested,
the discharge of resentment which takes place in the act of judging,
rejecting, and punishing egoism (one's own or that of others) is
still a self-preservative measure on the part of the bungled and the
botched. In short: the cult of altruism is merely a particular form of
egoism, which regularly appears under certain definite physiological
circumstances.

When the Socialist, with righteous indignation, cries for "justice,"
"rights," "equal rights," it only shows that he is oppressed by his
inadequate culture, and is unable to understand why he suffers: he
also finds pleasure in crying;--if he were more at ease he would take
jolly good care not to cry in that way: in that case he would seek his
pleasure elsewhere. The same holds good of the Christian: he curses,
condemns, and slanders the "world"--and does not even except himself.
But that is no reason for taking him seriously. In both cases we are
in the presence of invalids who feel better for crying, and who find
relief in slander.


374.

Every society has a tendency to reduce its opponents to
_caricatures,_--at least in its own imagination,--as also to
starve them. As an example of this sort of caricature we have our
"_criminal._" In the midst of the Roman and aristocratic order of
values, the _Jew_ was reduced to a caricature. Among artists, "Mrs.
Grundy and the bourgeois" become caricatures; while among pious
people it is the heretics, and among aristocrats, the plebeian. Among
immoralists it is the moralist. Plato, for instance, in _my_ books
becomes a caricature.


375.

All the instincts and forces which morality praises, seem to me to
be essentially the same as those which it slanders and rejects: for
instance, justice as will to power, will to truth as a means in the
service of the will to power.


376.

The _turning of_ man's _nature inwards._ The process of turning a
nature inwards arises when, owing to the establishment of peace and
society, powerful instincts are prevented from venting themselves
outwardly, and strive to survive harmlessly inside in conjunction with
the imagination. The need of hostility, cruelty, revenge, and violence
is reverted, "it steps backwards"; in the thirst for knowledge there
lurks both the lust of gain and of conquest; in the artist, the powers
of dissimulation and falsehood find their scope; the instincts are thus
transformed into demons with whom a fight takes place, etc.


377.

_Falsity._--Every _sovereign instinct_ makes the others its
instruments, its retainers and its sycophants: it never allows itself
to be called by its more hateful name: and it brooks no terms of praise
in which it cannot _indirectly_ find its share. Around every sovereign
instinct all praise and blame in general crystallises into a rigorous
form of ceremonial and etiquette. This is _one_ of the causes of
falsity.

_Every_ instinct _which aspires to dominion,_ but which finds itself
under a yoke, requisitions all the most beautiful names and the
_most generally accepted_ values to strengthen it and to support its
self-esteem, and this explains why _as a rule_ it dares to come forward
under the name of the "master" it is combating and from whom it would
be free (for instance, under the domination of Christian values, the
desires of the flesh and of power act in this way). This is the _other_
cause of falsity.

In both cases _complete ingenuousness_ reigns: the falseness _never_
even occurs to the mind of those concerned. It is the sign of a
_broken_ instinct when man sees the motive force and its "expression"
("the mask") as separate things--it is a sign of inner contradiction
and is much less formidable. Absolute _innocence_ in bearing, word,
and passion, a "good conscience" in falseness, and the certainty
wherewith all the grandest and most pompous words and attitudes are
appropriated--all these things are necessary for victory.

In the _other case_: that is to say, when _extreme clearsightedness_
is present, the genius of the _actor_ is needful as well as tremendous
discipline in self-control, if victory is to be achieved. That is why
priests are the cleverest and _most conscious_ hypocrites; and then
come princes, in whom their position in life and their antecedents
account for a certain histrionic gift. Society men and diplomatists
come third, and women fourth.

_The fundamental thought_: Falsity seems so deep, so many-sided, and
the _will_ is directed so inexorably against perfect self-knowledge
and accurate self-classification, that one is _very probably right in
supposing that Truth_ and _the will to truth_ are perhaps something
quite different and only _disguises._ (The need of _faith_ is the
greatest obstacle in the way of truthfulness.)


378.

"Thou shalt not tell a falsehood": people insist upon truthfulness. But
the acknowledgment of facts (the refusal to allow one's self to be lied
to) has always been greatest with liars: they actually recognised the
reality of this popular "truthfulness." There is too much or too little
being said continually: to insist upon people's _exposing themselves_
with every word they say, is a piece of naïveté.

People say what they think, they are "truthful"; but _only under
certain circumstances_: that is to say, provided they be _understood_
(_inter pares_), and understood with good will into the bargain (_once
more inter pares_). One conceals one's self in the presence of the
_unfamiliar_: and he who would attain to something, says what he would
fain have people think about him, but _not_ what he thinks. ("The
powerful man is always a liar.")


379.

The great counterfeit coinage of Nihilism concealed beneath an artful
abuse of moral values:--

_(a)_ Love regarded as self-effacement; as also pity.

_(b)_ The _most impersonal intellect_ ("the philosopher") can know the
_truth_, "the true essence and nature of things."

_(c)_ Genius, _great men_ are _great,_ because they do not strive
to further their own interests: the _value_ of man _increases_ in
proportion as he effaces himself.

_(d)_ Art as the work of the "_pure free-willed subject_";
misunderstanding of "objectivity."

_(e)_ Happiness as the object of life: _virtue_ as a means to an end.

The pessimistic condemnation of life by Schopenhauer is a _moral_ one.
Transference of the gregarious standards into the realm of metaphysics.

The "individual" lacks sense, he must therefore have his origin in "the
thing in itself" (and the significance of his existence must be shown
to be "error"); parents are only an "accidental cause."--The mistake
on the part of science in considering the individual as the result of
all past life instead of the epitome of all past life, is now becoming
known.


380.

1. Systematic _falsification of history,_ so that it may present a
proof of the moral valuation:

_(a)_ The decline of a people and corruption. _(b)_ The rise of a
people and virtue. _(c)_ The zenith of a people ("its culture")
regarded as the result of high moral excellence.

2. Systematic falsification of _great men, great creators,_ and _great
periods._ The desire is to make _faith_ that which distinguishes great
men: whereas carelessness in this respect, scepticism, "immorality,"
the right to repudiate a belief, belongs to greatness (Cæsar, Frederick
the Great, Napoleon; but also Homer, Aristophanes, Leonardo, Goethe).
The principal fact--their "free will"--is always suppressed.


381.

A great _lie_ in history; as if the _corruption of the Church were the
cause_ of the Reformation! This was only the pretext and self-deception
of the agitators--very strong needs were making themselves felt, the
brutality of which sorely required a spiritual dressing.


382.

Schopenhauer declared high intellectuality to be the _emancipation_
from the will: he did not wish to recognise the freedom from moral
prejudices which is coincident with the emancipation of a great mind;
he refused to see what is the typical immorality of genius; he artfully
contrived to set up the only moral value he honoured--self-effacement,
as the one _condition_ of highest intellectual activity: "objective"
contemplation. "Truth," even in art, only manifests itself after the
withdrawal of the _will_....

Through all moral idiosyncrasies I see a _fundamentally different
valuation._ Such absurd distinctions as "genius" and the world of will,
of morality and immorality, _I know nothing about at all._ The moral is
a lower kind of animal than the immoral, he is also weaker; indeed--he
is a type in regard to morality, but he is not a type of his own. He
is a copy; at the best, a good copy--the standard of his worth lies
_without_ him. I value a man according to the _quantum of power and
fullness of his will_: not according to the enfeeblement and moribund
state thereof. I consider that a philosophy which _teaches_ the denial
of will is both defamatory and slanderous.... I test the _power_ of
a _will_ according to the amount of resistance it can offer and the
amount of pain and torture it can endure and know how to turn to its
own advantage; I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with
the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one
day be more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.

The zenith of intellectuality, according to Schopenhauer, was to arrive
at the knowledge that all is to no purpose--in short, to recognise what
the good man already _does_ instinctively.... He denies that there can
be higher states of intellectuality--he regards his view as a _non plus
ultra.._.. Here intellectuality is placed much lower than goodness; its
highest value (as art, for instance) would be to lead up to, and to
advise the adoption of, morality, the absolute predominance of _moral
values._

Next to Schopenhauer I will now characterise _Kant_: there was nothing
Greek in Kant; he was quite anti-historical (cf. his attitude in
regard to the French Revolution) and a moral fanatic (see Goethe's
words concerning the radically evil element in human nature[8]).
_Saintliness_ also lurked somewhere in his soul.... I require a
criticism of the saintly type.

Hegel's value: "Passion."

Herbert Spencer's tea-grocer's philosophy: total absence of an ideal
save that of the mediocre man.

Fundamental instinct of all philosophers, historians, and
psychologists: everything of _value_ in mankind, art, history, science,
religion, and technology must be shown to be _morally valuable_ and
_morally conditioned,_ in its aim, means, and result. Everything is
seen in the light of this highest value; for instance, Rousseau's
question concerning civilisation, "Will it make man grow better?"--a
funny question, for the reverse is _obvious,_ and is a fact which
speaks _in favour_ of civilisation.


[Footnote 8: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--This is doubtless a reference to a
passage in a letter written by Goethe to Herder, on 7th June 1793,
from the camp at Marienborn, near Mainz, in which the following
words occur:--"_Dagegen hat aber auch Kant seinen philosophischen
Mantel, nachdem er ein langes Menschenleben gebraucht hat, ihn von
mancherlei sudelhaften Vorurteilen zu reinigen, freventlich mit dem
Schandfleck des radikalen Bösen beschlabbert, damit doch auch Christen
herbeigelockt werden den Saum zu küssen?--_("Kant, on the other hand,
after he had tried throughout his life to keep his philosophical cloak
unsoiled by foul prejudices, wantonly dirtied it in the end with the
disreputable stain of the 'radical evil' in human nature, in order that
Christians too might be lured into kissing its hem.") From this passage
it will be seen how Goethe had anticipated Nietzsche's view of Kant;
namely, that he was a Christian in disguise.]


383.

_Religious morality.--_Passion, great desire; the passion for power,
love, revenge, and property: the moralists wish to uproot and
exterminate all these things, and "purify" the soul by driving them out
of it.

The argument is: the passions often lead to disaster--therefore, they
are evil and ought to be condemned. Man must wring himself free from
them, otherwise he cannot be a _good_ man....

This is of the same nature as: "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it
out." In this particular case when, with that "bucolic simplicity,"
the Founder of Christianity recommended a certain practice to His
disciples, in the event of sexual excitement, the result would not be
only the loss of a particular member, but the actual castration of the
whole of the man's character.... And the same applies to the moral
mania, which, instead of insisting upon the control of the passions,
sues for their extirpation. Its conclusion always is: only the
emasculated man is a good man.

Instead of making use of and of _economising_ the great sources of
passion, those torrents of the soul which are often so dangerous,
overwhelming, and impetuous, morality--this most shortsighted and most
corrupted of mental attitudes--would fain make them _dry up._


384.

_Conquest over the passions?_--No, not if this is to mean their
enfeeblement and annihilation. _They must be enlisted in our service_:
and to this end it may be necessary to tyrannise them a good deal (not
as individuals, but as communities, races, etc.). At length we should
trust them enough to restore their freedom to them: they love us like
good servants, and willingly go wherever our best interests lie.


385.

_Intolerance on the part of morality_ is a sign of man's _weakness_:
he is frightened of his own "immorality," he must _deny_ his strongest
_instincts,_ because he does not yet know how to use them. Thus the
most fruitful quarters of the globe remain uncultivated longest: the
power is lacking that might become master here....


386.

There are some very simple peoples and men who believe that continuous
fine weather would be a desirable thing: they still believe to-day
in _rebus moralibus,_ that the "good man" alone and nothing else than
the "good man" is to be desired, and that the ultimate end of man's
evolution will be that only the good man will remain on earth (and that
it is only to that end that all efforts should be directed). This is
in the highest degree an _uneconomical_ thought; as we have already
suggested, it is the very acme of simplicity, and it is nothing more
than the expression of the _agreeableness_ which the "good man" creates
(he gives rise to no fear, he permits of relaxation, he gives what one
is able to take).

With a more educated eye one learns to desire exactly the reverse--that
is to say, an ever greater _dominion of evil,_ man's gradual
emancipation from the narrow and aggravating bonds of morality, the
growth of power around the greatest forces of Nature, and the ability
to enlist the passions in one's service.


387.

The whole idea of the hierarchy of the _passions_: as if the only right
and normal thing were to be led by _reason_--whereas the passions are
abnormal, dangerous, half-animal, and moreover, in so far as their end
is concerned, nothing more than _desires for pleasure...._

Passion is deprived of its dignity (1) as if it only manifested
itself in an unseemly way and were not necessary and always the
_motive force_, (2) inasmuch as it is supposed to aim at no high
purpose--merely at pleasure....

The misinterpretation of passion and _reason,_ as if the latter were
an independent entity, and not a state of relationship between all
the various passions and desires; and as though every passion did not
possess its quantum of reason....


388.

How it was that, under the pressure of the dominion of an ascetic
and _self-effacing morality,_ it was precisely the passions--love,
goodness, pity, even justice, generosity, and heroism, which were
necessarily misunderstood?

It is the _richness of a personality,_ the fullness of it, its power
to flow over and to bestow, its instinctive feeling of ease, and its
affirmative attitude towards itself, that creates great love and great
sacrifices: these passions proceed from strong and godlike personalism
as surely as do the desire to be master, to obtrude, and the inner
certainty that one has a right to everything. The _opposite_ views,
according to the most accepted notions, are indeed common views; and if
one does not stand firmly and bravely on one's legs, one has nothing to
give, and it is perfectly useless to stretch out one's hand either to
protect or to support others....

How was it possible to _transform_ these instincts to such an extent
that man could feel that to be of value which is directed against
himself, so that he could sacrifice himself for another self! O the
psychological baseness and falseness which hitherto has laid down the
law in the Church and in Church-infected philosophy!

If man is thoroughly sinful, then all he can do is to hate himself. As
a matter of fact, he ought not to regard even his fellows otherwise
than he does himself; the love of man requires a justification, and it
is found in the fact that _God commanded it._--From this it follows
that all the natural instincts of man (to love, etc.) appear to him
to be, in themselves, prohibited; and that he re-acquires a right to
them only after having _denied_ them as an obedient worshipper of God.
... Pascal, the admirable _logician_ of Christianity, _went as far as
this_! let any one examine his relations to his sister. "Not to make
one's self loved," seemed Christian to him.


389.

Let us consider how dearly a moral canon such as this ("an ideal")
makes us pay. (Its enemies are--well? The "egoists.")

The melancholy astuteness of self-abasement in Europe (Pascal,
La Rochefoucauld)--inner enfeeblement, discouragement, and
self-consumption of the non-gregarious man.

The perpetual process of laying stress upon mediocre qualities as being
the most valuable (modesty in rank and file, Nature converted into an
instrument).

Pangs of conscience associated with all that is self-glorifying and
original: thus follows the unhappiness--the _gloominess_ of the world
from the standpoint of stronger and better-constituted men!

Gregarious consciousness and timorousness transferred to philosophy and
religion.

Let us leave the psychological impossibility of a purely unselfish
action out of consideration!


390.

My ultimate conclusion is, that the _real_ man represents a much
higher value than the "desirable" man of any ideal that has ever
existed hitherto; that all "desiderata" in regard to mankind have
been absurd and dangerous dissipations by means of which a particular
kind of man has sought to establish _his_ measures of preservation
and of growth as a law for all; that every "desideratum" of this
kind which has been made to dominate has _reduced_ man's worth, his
strength, and his trust in the future; that the indigence and mediocre
intellectuality of man becomes most apparent, even to-day, when he
reveals a _desire_; that man's ability to fix values has hitherto been
developed too inadequately to do justice to the actual, not merely
to the "desirable," _worth of man_; that, up to the present, ideals
have really been the power which has most slandered man and power, the
poisonous fumes which have hung over reality, and which have _seduced
men to yearn for nonentity_....



D. _A Criticism of the Words: Improving, Perfecting, Elevating._


391.

The standard _according_ to which the value of moral valuations is to
be determined.

The fundamental fact _that has been overlooked_: The contradiction
between "becoming more moral" and the elevation and the strengthening
of the type man.

_Homo natura_: The "will to power."


392.

Moral values regarded as _values of appearance_ and compared with
_physiological_ values.


393.

Reflecting upon generalities is always retrograde: the last of the
"desiderata" concerning men, for instance, have never been regarded as
problems by philosophers. They always postulate the "_improvement_"
of man, quite guilelessly, as though by means of some intuition they
had been helped over the note of interrogation following the question,
_why_ necessarily "_improve!_" To what extent is it _desirable_ that
man should be more _virtuous,_ or more _intelligent,_ or _happier!_
Granting that nobody yet _knows_ the "wherefore?" of mankind, all
such desiderata have no sense whatever; and if one aspires to one
of them--who knows?--perhaps one is frustrating the other. Is an
increase of virtue compatible with an increase of intelligence and
insight? _Dubito_: only too often shall I have occasion to show that
the reverse is true. Has virtue, as an end, in the strict sense of the
word, not always been opposed to happiness hitherto? And again, does it
not require misfortune, abstinence, and self-castigation as a necessary
means? And if the aim were to arrive at the _highest insight,_ would
it not therefore be necessary to renounce all hope of an increase in
happiness, and to choose danger, adventure, mistrust, and seduction as
a road to enlightenment?... And suppose one will have happiness; maybe
one should join the ranks of the "poor in spirit."


394.

The wholesale deception and fraud of so-called _moral improvement._

We do not believe that one man can be another if he is not that
other already--that is to say, if he is not, as often happens, an
accretion of personalities or at least of parts of persons. In this
case it is possible to draw another set of actions from him into the
foreground, and to drive back "the older man." ... The man's aspect
is altered, but _not_ his actual nature.... It is but the merest
_factum brutum_ that any one should cease from performing certain
actions, and the fact allows of the most varied interpretations.
Neither does it always follow therefrom that the habit of performing
a certain action is entirely arrested, nor that the reasons for
that action are dissipated. He whose destiny and abilities make him
a criminal never unlearns anything, but is continually adding to his
store of knowledge: and long abstinence acts as a sort of tonic on
his talent.... Certainly, as far as society is concerned, the only
interesting fact is that some one has ceased from performing certain
actions; and to this end society will often raise a man out of those
circumstances which make him _able_ to perform those actions: this
is obviously a wiser course than that of trying to break his destiny
and his particular nature. The Church,--which has done nothing except
to take the place of, and to appropriate, the philosophic treasures
of antiquity,--starting out from another standpoint and wishing to
secure a "soul" or the "salvation" of a soul, believes in the expiatory
power of punishment, as also in the obliterating power of forgiveness:
both of which supposed processes are deceptions due to religious
prejudice--punishment expiates nothing, forgiveness obliterates
nothing; what is done cannot be undone. Because some one forgets
something it by no means proves that something has been wiped out....
An action leads to certain consequences, both among men and away from
men, and it matters not whether it has met with punishment, or whether
it has been "expiated," "forgiven," or "obliterated," it matters not
even if the Church meanwhile canonises the man who performed it. The
Church believes in things that do not exist, it believes in "Souls"; it
believes in "influences" that do not exist--in divine influences; it
believes in states that do not exist, in sin, redemption, and spiritual
salvation: in all things it stops at the surface and is satisfied with
signs, attitudes, words, to which it lends an arbitrary interpretation.
It possesses a method of counterfeit psychology which is thought out
quite systematically.


395.

"Illness makes men better," this famous assumption which is to be met
with in all ages, and in the mouth of the wizard quite as often as in
the mouth and maw of the people, really makes one ponder. In view of
discovering whether there is any truth in it, one might be allowed to
ask whether there is not perhaps a fundamental relationship between
morality and illness? Regarded as a whole, could not the "improvement
of mankind"--that is to say, the unquestionable softening, humanising,
and taming which the European has undergone within the last two
centuries--be regarded as the result of a long course of secret and
ghastly suffering, failure, abstinence, and grief? Has illness made
"Europeans" "better"? Or, put into other words, is not our modern
soft-hearted European morality, which could be likened to that of the
Chinese, perhaps an expression of physiological _deterioration_?...
It cannot be denied, for instance, that wherever history shows us
"man" in a state of particular glory and power, his type is always
dangerous, impetuous, and boisterous, and cares little for humanity;
and perhaps, in those cases in which _it seems otherwise,_ all that
was required was the courage or subtlety to see sufficiently below the
surface in psychological matters, in order even in them to discover the
general proposition: "the more healthy, strong, rich, fruitful, and
enterprising a man may feel, the more immoral he will be as well." A
terrible thought, to which one should on no account give way. Provided,
however, that one take a few steps forward with this thought, how
wondrous does the future then appear! What will then be paid for more
dearly on earth, than precisely this very thing which we are all trying
to promote, by all means in our power--the humanising, the improving,
and the increased "civilisation" of man? Nothing would then be more
expensive than virtue: for by means of it the world would ultimately
be turned into a hospital: and the last conclusion of wisdom would be,
"everybody must be everybody else's nurse." Then we should certainly
have attained to the "Peace on earth," so long desired! But how little
"joy we should find in each other's company"! How little beauty, wanton
spirits, daring, and danger! So few "actions" which would make life on
earth worth living! Ah! and no longer any "deeds"! But have not all the
_great_ things and deeds which have remained fresh in the memory of
men, and which have not been destroyed by time, been _immoral_ in the
deepest sense of the word?...


396.

The priests--and with them the half-priests or philosophers of all
ages--have always called that doctrine true, the educating influence
of which was a benevolent one or at least seemed so--that is to say,
tended to "improve." In this way they resemble an ingenuous plebeian
empiric and miracle-worker who, because he had tried a certain poison
as a cure, declared it to be no poison. "By their fruits ye shall know
them"--that is to say, "by our truths." This has been the reasoning
of priests until this day. They have squandered their sagacity, with
results that have been sufficiently fatal, in order to make the "proof
of power" (or the proof "by the fruits ") pre-eminent and even supreme
arbiter over all other forms of proof. "That which makes good must
be good; that which is good cannot lie"--these are their inexorable
conclusions--"that which bears good fruit must consequently be true;
there is no other criterion of truth." ...

But to the extent to which "improving" acts as an argument,
deteriorating must also act as a refutation. The error can be shown to
be an error, by examining the lives of those who represent it: a false
step, a vice can refute.... This indecent form of opposition, which
comes from below and behind--the doglike kind of attack, has not died
out either. Priests, as psychologists, never discovered anything more
interesting than spying out the secret vices of their adversaries--they
prove Christianity by looking about for the world's filth. They apply
this principle more particularly to the greatest on earth, to the
geniuses: readers will remember how Goethe has been attacked on every
conceivable occasion in Germany (Klopstock and Herder were among the
first to give a "good example" in this respect--birds of a feather
flock together).


397.

One must be very immoral in order to _make people moral by deeds._ The
moralist's means are the most terrible that have ever been used; he
who has not the courage to be an immoralist in deeds may be fit for
anything else, but not for the duties of a moralist.

Morality is a menagerie; it assumes that iron bars may be more useful
than freedom, even for the creatures it imprisons; it also assumes that
there are animal-tamers about who do not shrink from terrible means,
and who are acquainted with the use of red-hot iron. This terrible
species, which enters into a struggle with the wild animal, is called
"priests."

***

Man, incarcerated in an iron cage of errors, has become a caricature
of man; he is sick, emaciated, ill-disposed towards himself, filled
with a loathing of the impulses of life, filled with a mistrust of
all that is beautiful and happy in life--in fact, he is a wandering
monument of misery. How shall we ever succeed in vindicating this
phenomenon--this artificial, arbitrary, and _recent_ miscarriage--the
sinner--which the priests have bred on their territory?

***

In order to think fairly of morality, we must put two _biological_
notions in its place: the _taming_ of the wild beasts, and the _rearing
of a particular species._

The priests of all ages have always pretended that they wished to
"_improve_" ... But we, of another persuasion, would laugh if a
lion-tamer ever wished to speak to us of his "improved" animals. As a
rule, the taming of a beast is only achieved by deteriorating it: even
the moral man is not a better man; he is rather a weaker member of his
species. But he is less harmful....


398.

What I want to make clear, with all the means in my power, is:--

_(a)_ That there is no worse confusion than that which confounds
_rearing_ and _taming_: and these two things have always been
confused.... Rearing, as I understand it, is a means of husbanding
the enormous powers of humanity in such a way that whole generations
may build upon the foundations laid by their progenitors--not only
outwardly, but inwardly, organically, developing from the already
existing stem and growing _stronger_....

_(b)_ That there is an exceptional danger in believing that mankind as
a whole is developing and growing stronger, if individuals are seen
to grow more feeble and more equally mediocre. Humanity--mankind--is
an abstract thing: the object of _rearing,_ even in regard to the most
individual cases, can only be the _strong_ man (the man who has no
breeding is weak, dissipated, and unstable).



6. CONCLUDING REMARKS CONCERNING THE CRITICISM OF MORALITY.


399.

These are the things I demand of you--however badly they may sound in
your ears: that you subject moral valuations themselves to criticism.
That you should put a stop to your instinctive moral impulse--which in
this case demands submission and not criticism--with the question: "why
precisely submission?" That this yearning for a "why?"--for a criticism
of morality should not only be your present form of morality, but the
sublimest of all moralities, and an honour to the age you live in. That
your honesty, your will, may give an account of itself, and not deceive
you: "why not?"--Before what tribunal?


400.

The three _postulates_:--

    All that is ignoble is high (the protest of the "vulgar
    man").

    All that is contrary to Nature is high (the protest of the
    physiologically botched).

    All that is of average worth is high (the protest of the
    herd, of the "mediocre").

Thus in the _history of morality_ a _will to power_ finds expression,
by means of which, either the slaves, the oppressed, the bungled and
the botched, those that suffer from themselves, or the mediocre,
attempt to make those valuations prevail which favour _their_ existence.

From a biological standpoint, therefore, the phenomenon Morality is of
a highly suspicious nature. Up to the present, morality has developed
at the _cost_ of: the ruling classes and their specific instincts,
the well-constituted and _beautiful_ natures, the independent and
privileged classes in all respects.

Morality, then, is a sort of counter-movement opposing Nature's
endeavours to arrive at a _higher type._ Its effects are: mistrust of
life in general (in so far as its tendencies are felt to be immoral),
--hostility towards the senses (inasmuch as the highest values are
felt to be opposed to the higher instincts),--Degeneration and
self-destruction of "higher natures," because it is precisely in them
that the conflict becomes _conscious._


401.

_Which values have been paramount hitherto?_

Morality as the leading value in all phases of philosophy (even with
the Sceptics). Result: this world is no good, a "true world" must exist
somewhere.

What is it that here determines the highest value? What, in sooth,
is morality? The instinct of decadence; it is the exhausted and
the disinherited who _take their revenge_ in this way and play the
_masters_....

Historical proof: philosophers have always been decadents and always in
the pay of Nihilistic religions.

The instinct of decadence appears as the will to power. The
introduction of its system of means: its means are absolutely immoral.

General aspect: the values that have been highest hitherto have been a
special instance of the will to power; morality itself is a particular
instance of _immorality._

***

Why the Antagonistic Values always succumbed.

1. How was this actually _possible!_ Question: why did life and
physiological well-constitutedness succumb everywhere? Why was there no
affirmative philosophy, no affirmative religion?

    The historical signs of such movements: the pagan religion.
    Dionysos _versus_ the Christ. The Renaissance. Art.

2. The strong and the weak: the healthy and the sick; the exception and
the rule. There is no doubt as to who is the stronger....

_General view of history_; Is man an _exception_ in the history of life
on this account?--An objection to _Darwinism._ The means wherewith
the weak succeed in ruling have become: instincts, "humanity,"
"institutions." ...

3. The proof of this rule on the part of the weak is to be found in
our political instincts, in our social values, in our arts, and in our
_science._

***

The _instincts of decadence_ have become master of the _instincts of
ascending_ life.... The _will to nonentity_ has prevailed over the
_will to life_!

Is this _true_? is there not perhaps a stronger guarantee of life and
of the species in this victory of the weak and the mediocre?--is it
not perhaps only a means in the collective movement of life, a mere
slackening of the pace, a protective measure against something even
more dangerous?

Suppose the _strong_ were masters in all respects, even in valuing:
let us try and think what their attitude would be towards illness,
suffering, and sacrifice! _Self-contempt on the part of the weak_ would
be the result: they would do their utmost to disappear and to extirpate
their kind. And would this be _desirable_?--should we really like a
world in which the subtlety, the consideration, the intellectuality,
the _plasticity_--in fact, the whole influence of the weak--was
lacking?[9] ...

We have seen two "wills to power" at war _(in this special case we
had a principle_: that of agreeing with the one that has hitherto
succumbed, and of disagreeing with the one that has hitherto
triumphed): we have recognised the "real world" as a "_world of lies_"
and morality as a _form of immorality._ We do _not_ say "the stronger
is wrong."

We have understood _what_ it is that has determined the highest values
hitherto, and _why_ the latter should have prevailed over the opposite
value: it was numerically the _stronger_.

If we now purify _the opposite value_ of the infection, the
half-heartedness, _and the degeneration,_ with which we identify it, we
restore Nature to the throne, free from moralic acid.


[Footnote 9: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--We realise here the great difference
between Nietzsche and those who draw premature conclusions from
Darwinism. There is no brutal solution of modern problems in
Nietzsche's philosophy. He did not advocate anything so ridiculous as
the total suppression of the weak and the degenerate. What he wished to
resist and to overthrow _was their supremacy, their excessive power._
He felt that there was a desirable and stronger type which was in need
of having its hopes, aspirations, and instincts upheld in defiance of
Christian values.]


402.

_Morality,_ a useful error; or, more clearly still, a necessary and
expedient lie according to the greatest and most impartial of its
supporters.


403.

One ought to be able to acknowledge the truth up to that point where
one is sufficiently elevated no longer to require the _disciplinary
school of moral error._--When one judges life morally, it _disgusts_
one.

Neither should false personalities be invented; one should not say, for
instance, "Nature is cruel." It is precisely when one perceives _that
there is no such central controlling and responsible force that one is
relieved!_

    _Evolution of man._ A. He tried to attain to a certain power
    over Nature and over himself. (Morality was necessary in
    order to make man triumph in his struggle with Nature and
    "wild animals.")

    B. If power over Nature has been attained, this power can
    be used as a help in our development: Will to Power as a
    self-enhancing and self-strengthening principle.


404.

Morality may be regarded as the _illusion of a species,_ fostered with
the view of urging the individual to sacrifice himself to the future,
and seemingly granting him such a very great value, that with that
_self-consciousness_ he may tyrannise over, and constrain, other sides
of his nature, and find it difficult to be pleased with himself.

We ought to be most profoundly thankful for what morality has done
hitherto: _but now it is no more than a burden_ which may prove fatal.
_Morality itself_ in the form of honesty urges us to deny morality.


405.

To what extent is the _self-destruction of morality_ still a sign of
its own strength? We Europeans have within us the blood of those who
were ready to die for their faith; we have taken morality frightfully
seriously, and there is nothing which we have not, at one time,
sacrificed to it. On the other hand, our intellectual subtlety has
been reached essentially through the vivisection of our consciences.
We do not yet know the "whither" towards which we are urging our
steps, now that we have departed from the soil of our forebears. But
it was on this very soil that we acquired the strength which is now
driving us from our homes in search of adventure, and it is thanks
to that strength that we are now in mid-sea, surrounded by untried
possibilities and things undiscovered--we can no longer choose, we must
be conquerors, now that we have no land in which we feel at home and
in which we would fain "survive." A concealed "_yea_" is driving us
forward, and it is stronger than all our "nays." Even our _strength_ no
longer bears with us in the old swampy land: we venture out into the
open, we attempt the task. The world is still rich and undiscovered,
and even to perish were better than to be half-men or poisonous men.
Our very strength itself urges us to take to the sea; there where all
suns have hitherto sunk we know of a new world....




III.

CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.


1. GENERAL REMARKS.



406.

Let us rid ourselves of a few superstitions which heretofore have been
fashionable among philosophers!


407.

Philosophers are prejudiced _against_ appearance, change, pain, death,
the things of the body, the senses, fate, bondage, and all that which
has no purpose.

In the first place, they believe in: absolute knowledge, (2) in
knowledge for its own sake,

(3) in virtue and happiness as necessarily related,

(4) in the recognisability of men's acts. They are led by instinctive
determinations of values, in which _former_ cultures are reflected
(more dangerous cultures too).


408.

What have philosophers _lacked_! (1) A sense of history, (2) a
knowledge of physiology, (3) a goal in the future.--The ability to
criticise without irony or moral condemnation.


409.

Philosophers have had (1) from times immemorial a wonderful capacity
for the _contradictio in adjecto,_ (2) they have always trusted
concepts as unconditionally as they have mistrusted the senses: it
never seems to have occurred to them that notions and words are our
inheritance of past ages in which thinking was neither very clear nor
very exact.

What seems to dawn upon philosophers last of all: that they must
no longer allow themselves to be presented with concepts already
conceived, nor must they merely purify and polish up those concepts;
but they must first _make_ them, _create_ them, themselves, and
then present them and get people to accept them. Up to the present,
people have trusted their concepts generally, as if they had been a
wonderful _dowry_ from some kind of wonderland: but they constitute
the inheritance of our most remote, most foolish, and most intelligent
forefathers. This _piety_ towards that _which already exists in us_
is perhaps related to the _moral element in science._ What we needed
above all is absolute scepticism towards all traditional concepts (like
that which a certain philosopher may already have possessed--and he was
Plato, of course: for he taught _the reverse_).


410.

Profoundly mistrustful towards the dogmas of the theory of knowledge,
I liked to look now out of this window, now out of that, though I took
good care not to become finally fixed anywhere, indeed I should have
thought it dangerous to have done so--though finally: is it within the
range of probabilities for an instrument to criticise its own fitness?
What I noticed more particularly was, that no scientific scepticism or
dogmatism has ever arisen quite free from all _arrières pensées_--that
it has only a secondary value as soon as the motive lying immediately
behind it is discovered.

Fundamental aspect: Kant's, Hegel's, Schopenhauer's, the sceptical and
epochistical, the historifying and the pessimistic attitudes--all have
a _moral_ origin. I have found no one who has dared to _criticise the
moral valuations,_ and I soon turned my back upon the meagre attempts
that have been made to describe the evolution of these feelings (by
English and German Darwinians).

How can Spinoza's position, his denial and repudiation of the moral
values, be explained? (It was the result of his Theodicy!)


411.

_Morality regarded as the highest form of protection._--Our world is
_either_ the work and expression (the _modus_) of God, in which case
it must be _in the highest degree perfect_ (Leibnitz's conclusion
...),--and no one doubted that he knew what perfection must be
like,--and then all evil can only be _apparent_ (Spinoza is _more
radical,_ he says this of good and evil), or it must be a part of God's
high purpose (a consequence of a particularly great mark of favour
on God's part, who thus allows man to choose between good and evil:
the privilege of being no automaton; "freedom," with the ever-present
danger of making a mistake and of choosing wrongly.... See Simplicius,
for instance, in the commentary to Epictetus).

_Or_ our world is imperfect; evil and guilt are real, determined, and
are absolutely inherent to its being; in that case it cannot be the
_real_ world: consequently knowledge can only be a way of denying
the world, for the latter is error which may be recognised as such.
This is Schopenhauer's opinion, based upon Kantian first principles.
Pascal was still more desperate: he thought that even knowledge must be
corrupt and false--that _revelation_ is a necessity if only in order to
recognise that the world should be denied....


412.

Owing to our habit of believing in unconditional authorities, we have
grown to feel a profound need for them: indeed, this feeling is so
strong that, even in an age of criticism such as Kant's was, it showed
itself to be superior to the need for criticism, and, in a certain
sense, was able to subject the whole work of critical acumen, and to
convert it to its own use. It proved its superiority once more in
the generation which followed, and which, owing to its historical
instincts, naturally felt itself drawn to a relative view of all
authority, when it converted even the Hegelian philosophy of evolution
(history rechristened and called philosophy) to its own use, and
represented history as being the self-revelation and self-surpassing
of moral ideas. Since Plato, philosophy has lain under the dominion of
morality. Even in Plato's predecessors, moral interpretations play a
most important rôle (Anaximander declares that all things are made to
perish as a punishment for their departure from pure being; Heraclitus
thinks that the regularity of phenomena is a proof of the morally
correct character of evolution in general).


413.

The progress of philosophy has been hindered most seriously hitherto
through the influence of moral _arrières-pensées._


414.

In all ages, "fine feelings" have been regarded as arguments, "heaving
breasts" have been the bellows of godliness, convictions have been the
"criteria" of truth, and the need of opposition has been the note of
interrogation affixed to wisdom. This falseness and fraud permeates
the whole history of philosophy. But for a few respected sceptics,
no instinct for intellectual Uprightness is to be found anywhere.
Finally, _Kant_ guilelessly sought to make this thinker's corruption
scientific by means of his concept, "_practical reason_". He expressly
invented a reason which, in certain cases, would allow one _not_ to
bother about reason--that is to say, in cases where the heart's desire,
morality, or "duty" are the motive power.


415.

_Hegel_: his popular side, the doctrine of war and of great men. Right
is on the side of the victorious: he (the victorious man) stands for
the progress of mankind. His is an attempt at proving the dominion of
morality by means of history.

Kant: a kingdom of moral values withdrawn from us, invisible, real.

Hegel: a demonstrable process of evolution, the actualisation of the
kingdom of morality.

We shall not allow ourselves to be deceived either in Kant's or Hegel's
way:--We no longer _believe,_ as they did, in morality, and therefore
have no philosophies to found with the view of justifying morality.
Criticism and history have no charm for us _in this_ respect: what is
their charm, then?


416.

The importance of German philosophy (_Hegel,_) the thinking out of a
kind of _pantheism_ which would not reckon evil, error, and suffering
as arguments against godliness. _This grand initiative_ was misused
by the powers that were (State, etc.) to sanction the rights of the
people that happened to be paramount.

_Schopenhauer_ appears as a stubborn opponent of this idea; he is a
moral man who, in order to keep in the right concerning his moral
valuation, finally becomes a _denier of the world._ Ultimately he
becomes a "mystic."

I myself have sought an _æsthetic_ justification of the ugliness in
this world. I regarded the desire for beauty and for the persistence
of certain forms as a temporary preservative and recuperative measure:
what seemed to me to be fundamentally associated with pain, however,
was the eternal lust of creating and the _eternal compulsion to
destroy._

We call things ugly when we look at them with the desire of attributing
some sense, some _new_ sense, to what has become senseless: it is the
accumulated power of the creator which compels him to regard what has
existed hitherto as no longer acceptable, botched, worthy of being
suppressed--ugly!


417.

_My first solution of the problem: Dionysian wisdom. The joy in the
destruction of the most noble thing,_ and at the sight of its gradual
undoing, regarded as the joy over what is _coming and what lies in the
future,_ which triumphs over _actual things, however good they may
be._ Dionysian: temporary identification with the principle of life
(voluptuousness of the martyr included).

_My innovations._ The Development of Pessimism: intellectual
pessimism; _moral_ criticism, the dissolution of the last comfort.
Knowledge, a sign of _decay,_ veils by means of an illusion all strong
action; isolated culture is unfair and therefore strong.

(1) My _fight_ against decay and the increasing weakness of
personality. I sought a new _centrum._

(2) The impossibility of this endeavour is _recognised._

(3) _I therefore travelled farther along the road of dissolution--and
along it I found new sources of strength for individuals._ We _must
be destroyers_!--I perceived that the state of _dissolution is one
in which individual beings are able to arrive at a kind of perfection
not possible hitherto, it is an image and isolated example of life
in general._ To the paralysing feeling of general dissolution and
imperfection, I opposed the _Eternal Recurrence._


418.

People naturally seek the picture of life in _that_ philosophy which
makes them most cheerful--that is to say, in that philosophy which
gives the highest sense of freedom to _their strongest instinct._ This
is probably the case with me.


419.

German philosophy, as a whole,--Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, to
mention the greatest,--is the most out-and-out _form of romanticism_
and home-sickness that has ever yet existed: it is a yearning for the
best that has ever been known on earth. One is at home nowhere; that
which is ultimately yearned after is a place where one can somehow
feel at home; because one has been at home there before, and that
place is the _Greek_ world! But it is precisely in that direction
that airbridges are broken down_--save,_ of course, the rainbow
of concepts! And the latter lead everywhere, to all the homes and
"fatherlands" that ever existed for Greek souls! Certainly, one must be
very light and thin in order to cross these bridges! But what happiness
lies even in this desire for spirituality, almost for ghostliness!
With it, how far one is from the "press and bustle" and the mechanical
boorishness of the natural sciences, how far from the vulgar din
of "modern ideas"! One wants to get back to the Greeks _via_ the
Fathers of the Church, from North to South, from formulæ to forms; the
passage out of antiquity--Christianity--is still a source of joy as a
means of access to antiquity, as a portion of the old world itself,
as a glistening mosaic of ancient concepts and ancient valuations.
Arabesques, scroll-work, rococo of scholastic abstractions--always
better, that is to say, finer and more slender, than the peasant and
plebeian reality of Northern Europe, and still a protest on the part
of higher intellectuality against the peasant war and insurrection
of the mob which have become master of the intellectual taste of
Northern Europe, and which had its leader in a man as great and
unintellectual as Luther:--in this respect German philosophy belongs
to the Counter-Reformation, it might even be looked upon as related
to the Renaissance, or at least to the will to Renaissance, the will
to get ahead with the discovery of antiquity, with the excavation of
ancient philosophy, and above all of pre-Socratic philosophy--the
most thoroughly dilapidated of all Greek temples! Possibly, in à few
hundred years, people will be of the opinion that all German philosophy
derived its dignity from this fact, that step by step it attempted
to reclaim the soil of antiquity, and that therefore all demands for
"originality" must appear both petty and foolish when compared with
Germany's higher claim to having refastened the bonds which seemed for
ever rent--the bonds which bound us to the Greeks, the highest type
of "men" ever evolved hitherto. To-day we are once more approaching
all the fundamental principles of the cosmogony which the Greek mind
in Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Empedocles, Democritus, and
Anaxagoras, was responsible for. Day by day we are growing more
_Greek_; at first, as is only natural, the change remains confined to
concepts and valuations, and we hover around like Greasing spirits: but
it is to be hoped that some day our _body_ will also be involved! Here
lies (and has always lain) my hope for the German nation.


420.

I do not wish to convert anybody to philosophy: it is both necessary
and perhaps desirable that the philosopher should be a _rare_
plant. Nothing is more repugnant to me than the scholarly praise of
philosophy which is to be found in Seneca and Cicero. Philosophy
has not much in common with virtue. I trust I may be allowed to say
that even the scientific man is a fundamentally different person
from the philosopher. What I most desire is, that the genuine notion
"philosopher" should not completely perish in Germany. There are so
many incomplete creatures in Germany already who would fain conceal
their ineptitude beneath such noble names.


421.

I must _set up the highest ideal of a philosopher._ Learning is not
everything! The scholar is the sheep in the kingdom of learning; he
studies because he is told to do so, and because others have done so
before him.


422.

The superstition concerning _philosophers_: They are confounded with
men _of science._ As if the value of things were inherent in them
and required only to be held on to tightly! To what extent are their
researches carried on under the influence of values which already
prevail (their hatred of appearance of the body, etc.)? Schopenhauer
concerning morality (scorn of Utilitarianism). Ultimately the confusion
goes so far that Darwinism is regarded as philosophy, and thus at the
present day power has gone over to the men of _science._ Even Frenchmen
like Taine prosecute research, or mean to prosecute research,
_without_ being already in possession of a standard of valuation.
Prostration before "facts" of a kind of cult. As a matter of fact, they
_destroy_ the existing valuations.

The _explanation_ of this misunderstanding. The man who is able to
command is a rare phenomenon; he misinterprets himself. What one
_wants_ to do, above all, is to disclaim all authority and to attribute
it to _circumstances._ In Germany the critic's estimations belong to
the history of awakening _manhood._ Lessing, etc. (Napoleon concerning
Goethe). As a matter of fact, the movement is again made retrograde
owing to German romanticism: and the _fame_ of German philosophy
relies upon it as if it dissipated the danger of scepticism and could
_demonstrate faith._ Both tendencies culminate in Hegel: at bottom,
what he did was to generalise the fact of German criticism and the
fact of German romanticism,--a kind of dialectical fatalism, but to
the honour of intellectuality, with the actual submission of the
philosopher to reality. _The critic prepares the way_: that is all!

With Schopenhauer the philosopher's mission dawns; it is felt that
the object is to determine _values_; still under the dominion of
eudemonism. The ideal of Pessimism.


423.

_Theory and practice._--This is a pernicious distinction, as if there
were an _instinct of knowledge,_ which, without inquiring into the
utility or harmfulness of a thing, blindly charged at the truth; and
then that, apart from this instinct, there were the whole world of
_practical_ interests.

In contradiction of this, I try to show what instincts are active
behind all these _pure_ theorists,--and how the latter, as a whole,
under the dominion of their instincts, fatally make for something
which _to their minds_ is "truth," to their minds and _only_ to their
minds. The struggle between systems, together with the struggle between
epistemological scruples, is one which involves very special instincts
(forms of vitality, of decline, of classes, of races, etc.).

The so-called _thirst for knowledge_ may be traced to the _lust of
appropriation_ and of _conquest_: in obedience to this lust the
senses, memory, and the instincts, etc., were developed. The quickest
possible reduction of the phenomena, economy, the accumulation of spoil
from the world of knowledge (_i.e._ that portion of the world which has
been appropriated and made manageable)....

Morality is therefore such a curious science, because it is in the
highest degree _practical_: the purely scientific position, scientific
uprightness, is thus immediately abandoned, as soon as morality calls
for replies to its questions. Morality says: I _require_ certain
answers--reasons, arguments; scruples may come afterwards, or they may
not come at all.

"How must one act?" If one considers that one is dealing with a
supremely evolved type--a type which has been "dealt with" for
countless thousands of years, and in which everything has become
instinct, expediency, automatism, fatality, the _urgency_ of this moral
question seems rather funny.

"How must one act?" Morality has always been a subject of
misunderstanding: as a matter of fact, a certain species, which was
constituted to act in a certain way, wished to justify itself by
_making_ its norm paramount.

"How must one act?" this is not a cause, but an _effect._ Morality
follows, the ideal comes first....

On the other hand, the appearance of moral scruples (or in other
words, _the coming to consciousness of the values_ which guide action)
betray a certain _morbidness_; strong ages and people do not ponder
over their rights, nor over the principles of action, over instinct or
over reason. _Consciousness_ is a sign that the real morality--that
is to say, the certainty of instinct which leads to a definite
course of action--is going to the dogs.... Every time a new _world
of consciousness_ is created, the moralists are signs of a lesion,
of impoverishment and of disorganisation. Those who are _deeply
instinctive_ fear bandying words over duties: among them are found
pyrrhonic opponents of dialectics and of knowableness in general.... A
virtue is _refuted_ with a "for." ...

_Thesis_: The appearance of moralists belongs to periods when morality
is declining.

_Thesis_: The moralist is a dissipator of moral instincts, however much
he may appear to be their restorer.

_Thesis_: That which really prompts the action of a moralist is not a
moral instinct, but the _instincts of decadence,_ translated into the
forms of morality (he regards the growing uncertainty of the instincts
as _corruption_).

_Thesis_: The _instincts of decadence_ which, thanks to moralists, wish
to become master of the instinctive morality of stronger races and
ages, are:--

(1) The instincts of the weak and of the botched;

(2) The instincts of the exceptions, of the anchorites, of the
unhinged, of the abortions of quality or of the reverse;

(3) The instincts of the habitually suffering, who require a noble
interpretation of their condition, and who therefore require to be as
poor physiologists as possible.


424.

The humbug of the _scientific spirit._--One should not affect the
spirit of science, when the time to be scientific is not yet at
hand; but even the genuine investigator has to abandon vanity, and
has to affect a certain kind of method which is not yet seasonable.
Neither should we falsify things and thoughts, which we have arrived
at differently, by means of a false arrangement of deduction and
dialectics. It is thus that Kant in his "morality" falsifies his
inner tendency to psychology; a more modern example of the same thing
is Herbert Spencer's _Ethics._ A man should neither conceal nor
misrepresent the _facts_ concerning the way in which he conceived his
thoughts. The deepest and most inexhaustible books will certainly
always have something of the aphoristic and impetuous character of
Pascal's _Pensées_. The motive forces and valuations have lain long
below the surface; that which comes uppermost is their effect.

I guard against all the humbug of a false scientific spirit:--

(1) In respect of the manner of _demonstration,_ if it does not
correspond to the genesis of the thoughts;

(2) In respect of the demands for _methods_ which, at a given period in
science, may be quite impossible;

(3) In respect of the demand for _objectivity_ for cold impersonal
treatment, where, as in the case of all valuations, we describe
ourselves and our intimate experiences in a couple of words. There
are ludicrous forms of vanity, as, for instance, Sainte-Beuve's. He
actually worried himself all his life because he had shown some warmth
or passion either "_pro_" or "con," and he would fein have lied that
fact out of his life.


425.

"Objectivity" in the philosopher: moral indifference in regard to one's
self, blindness in regard to either favourable or fetal circumstances.
Unscrupulousness in the use of dangerous means; perversity and
complexity of character considered as an advantage and exploited.

My profound indifference to myself: I refuse to derive any advantage
from my knowledge, nor do I wish to escape any disadvantages which it
may entail.--I include among these disadvantages that which is called
the _perversion_ of character; this prospect is beside the point: I use
my character, but I try neither to understand it nor to change it--the
personal calculation of virtue has not entered my head once. It strikes
me that one closes the doors of knowledge as soon as one becomes
interested in one's own personal case--or even in the "Salvation of
one's soul"!... One should not take one's morality too seriously, nor
should one forfeit a modest right to the opposite of morality....

A sort of _heritage of morality_ is perhaps presupposed here: one
feels that one can be lavish with it and fling a great deal of it out
of the window without materially reducing one's means. One is never
tempted to admire "beautiful souls," one always knows one's self to be
their superior. The monsters of virtue should be met with inner scorn;
_déniaiser la vertu_--Oh, the joy of it!

One should revolve round one's self, have no desire to be "better" or
"anything else" at all than one is. One should be too interested to
omit throwing the tentacles or meshes of every morality out to things.


426.

Concerning the psychology of _philosophers._ They should be
psychologists--this was possible only from the nineteenth century
onwards--and no longer little Jack Homers, who see three or four
feet in front of them, and are almost satisfied to burrow inside
themselves. We psychologists of the future are not very intent on
self-contemplation: we regard it almost as a sign of degeneration when
an instrument endeavours "to know itself":[10] we are instruments of
knowledge and we would fain possess all the precision and ingenuousness
of an instrument--consequently we may not analyse or "know" ourselves.
The first sign of a great psychologist's self-preservative instinct:
he never goes in search of himself, he has no eye, no interest, no
inquisitiveness where he himself is concerned.... The great egoism
of our dominating will insists on our completely shutting our eyes to
ourselves, and on our appearing "impersonal," "disinterested"!--Oh to
what a ridiculous degree we are the reverse of this!

We are no Pascals, we are not particularly interested in the
"Salvation of the soul," in our own happiness, and in our own
virtue.--We have neither enough time nor enough curiosity to be so
concerned with ourselves. Regarded more deeply, the case is again
different, we thoroughly mistrust all men who thus contemplate their
own navels: because introspection seems to us a degenerate form of
the psychologist's genius, as a note of interrogation affixed to the
psychologist's instinct: just as a painter's eye is degenerate which is
actuated by the _will_ to see for the sake of seeing.


[Footnote 10: TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.--Goethe invariably inveighed against
the "gnoti seauton" of the Socratic school; he was of the opinion that
an animal which tries to see its inner self must be sick.]




2. A CRITICISM OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY.


427.

The apparition of Greek philosophers since the time of Socrates is a
symptom of decadence; the anti-Hellenic instincts become paramount.

The "_Sophist_" is still quite Hellenic--as are also Anaxagoras,
Democritus, and the great Ionians; but only as transitional forms. The
_polis_ loses its faith in the unity of its culture, in its rights of
dominion over every other _polis...._ Cultures, that is to say, "the
gods," are exchanged, and thus the belief in the exclusive prerogative
of the _deus autochthonus_ is lost. Good and Evil of whatever origin
get mixed: the boundaries separating good from evil gradually
_vanish...._ This is the "Sophist." ...

On the other hand, the "philosopher" is the _reactionary_: he insists
upon the _old_ virtues. He sees the reason of decay in the decay of
institutions: he therefore wishes to revive _old_ institutions;--he
sees decay in the decline of authority: he therefore endeavours to
find _new_ authorities (he travels abroad, explores foreign literature
and exotic religions....);--he will reinstate the _ideal polis,_ after
the concept "polis" has become superannuated (just, as the Jews kept
themselves together as a "people" after they had fallen into slavery).
They become interested in all tyrants: their desire is to re-establish
virtue with "_force majeure_".

Gradually everything _genuinely Hellenic_ is held responsible for
the state of _decay_ (and Plato is just as ungrateful to Pericles,
Homer, tragedy, and rhetoric as the prophets are to David and
Saul). _The downfall of Greece is conceived as an objection to the
fundamental principles of Hellenic culture: the profound error of
philosophers_--Conclusion: the Greek world perishes. The cause thereof:
Homer, mythology, ancient morality, etc.

The anti-Hellenic development of philosophers' valuations:--the
Egyptian influence ("Life after death" made into law....);--the Semitic
influence (the "dignity of the sage," the "Sheik");--the Pythagorean
influence, the subterranean cults, Silence, means of terrorisation
consisting of appeals to a "Beyond," _mathematics_: the religious
valuation consisting of a sort of intimacy with a cosmic entity;--the
sacerdotal, ascetic, and transcendental influences;--the _dialectical_
influence,--I am of opinion that even Plato already betrays revolting
and pedantic meticulousness in his concepts!--Decline of good
intellectual taste: the hateful noisiness of every kind of direct
dialectics seems no longer to be felt.

The _two_ decadent tendencies and extremes run side by side: (a) the
luxuriant and more charming kind of decadence which shows a love of
pomp and art, and (b) the gloomy kind, with its religious and moral
pathos, its stoical self-hardening tendency, its Platonic denial of the
senses, and its preparation of the soil for the coming of Christianity.


428.

To what extent psychologists have been corrupted by the moral
idiosyncrasy!--Not one of the ancient philosophers had the courage to
advance the theory of the non-free will (that is to say, the theory
that denies morality);--not one had the courage to identify the typical
feature of happiness, of every kind of happiness "pleasure"), with the
will to power: for the pleasure of power was considered immoral;--not
one had the courage to regard virtue as a _result of immorality_ (as a
result of a will to power) in the service of a species (or of a race,
or of a _polis_); for the will to power was considered immoral.

In the whole of moral evolution, there is no sign of truth: all
the conceptual elements which come into play are fictions; all the
psychological tenets are false; all the forms of logic employed in this
department of prevarication are sophisms. The chief feature of all
moral philosophers is their total lack of intellectual cleanliness and
self-control: they regard "fine feelings" as arguments: their heaving
breasts seem to them the bellows of godliness.... Moral philosophy is
the most suspicious period in the history of the human intellect.

The first great example: in the name of morality and under its
patronage, a great wrong was committed, which as a matter of fact was
in every respect an act of decadence. Sufficient stress cannot be laid
upon this fact, that the great Greek philosophers not only represented
the decadence of _every kind of Greek ability_, but also made it
_contagious_.... This "virtue" made wholly abstract was the highest
form of seduction; to make oneself abstract means to turn one's back on
the world.

The moment is a very remarkable one: the Sophists are within sight
of the first _criticism of morality,_ the first _knowledge_ of
morality:--they classify the majority of moral valuations (in view
of their dependence upon local conditions) together;--they lead one
to understand that every form of morality is capable of being upheld
dialectically: that is to say, they guessed that all the fundamental
principles of a morality must be _sophistical_--a proposition which
was afterwards proved in the grandest possible style by the ancient
philosophers from Plato onwards (up to Kant);--they postulate the
primary truth that there is no such thing as a "moral _per se_," a
"good _per se_," and that it is madness to talk of "truth" in this
respect.

Wherever was _intellectual uprightness_ to be found in those days?

The Greek culture of the Sophists had grown out of all the Greek
instincts; it belongs to the culture of the age of Pericles as
necessarily as Plato does not: it has its predecessors in Heraclitus,
Democritus, and in the scientific types of the old philosophy; it
finds expression in the elevated culture of Thucydides, for instance.
And--it has ultimately shown itself to be right: every step in the
science of epistemology and morality has _confirmed the attitude_ of
the Sophists.... Our modern attitude of mind is, to a great extent,
Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean ... to say that it is
_Protagorean_ is even sufficient: because Protagoras was in himself a
synthesis of the two men Heraclitus and Democritus.

(_Plato_: a _great Cagliostro,_--let us think of how Epicurus judged
him; how Timon, Pyrrho's friend, judged him----Is Plato's integrity by
any chance beyond question?... But we at least know what he wished to
have _taught_ as absolute truth--namely, things which were to him not
even relative truths: the separate and immortal life of "souls.")


429.

The _Sophists_ are nothing more, nor less than realists: they elevate
all the values and practices which are common property to the rank of
values--they have the courage, peculiar to all strong intellects,
which consists in _knowing_ their immorality....

Is it to be supposed that these small Greek independent republics,
so filled with rage and envy that they would fain have devoured each
other, were led by principles of humanity and honesty? Is Thucydides
by any chance reproached with the words he puts into the mouths of
the Athenian ambassadors when they were treating with the Melii anent
the question of destruction or submission? Only the most perfect
Tartuffes could have been able to speak of virtue in the midst of that
dreadful strain--or if not Tartuffes, at least _detached philosophers,_
anchorites, exiles, and fleers from reality.... All of them, people
who denied things in order to be able to exist.

The Sophists were Greeks: when Socrates and Plato adopted the cause
of virtue and justice, they were _Jews_ or I know not what. _Grote's_
tactics in the defence of the Sophists are false: he would like to
raise them to the rank of men of honour and moralisers--but it was
their honour not to indulge in any humbug with grand words and virtues.


430.

The great reasonableness underlying all moral education lay in the fact
that it always attempted to attain to _the certainty of an instinct_:
so that neither good intentions nor good means, as such, first required
to enter consciousness. Just as the soldier learns his exercises, so
should man learn how to act in life. In truth this unconsciousness
belongs to every kind of perfection: even the mathematician carries out
his calculations unconsciously....

What, then, does Socrates' _reaction_ mean, which recommended
dialectics as the way to virtue, and which was charmed when morality
was unable to justify itself logically? But this is precisely what
proves its _superiority_--without unconsciousness _it is worth nothing_!

In reality it means _the dissolution of Greek instincts,_ when
_demonstrability_ is posited as the first condition of personal
excellence in virtue. All these great "men of virtue" and of words are
themselves types of dissolution.

In practice, it means that moral judgments have been torn from the
conditions among which they grew and in which alone they had some
sense, from their Greek and Græco-political soil, in order to be
_denaturalised_ under the cover of being _made sublime._ The great
concepts "good" and "just" are divorced from the first principles of
which they form a part, and, as "ideas" _become free,_ degenerate
into subjects for discussion. A certain truth is sought behind them;
they are regarded as entities or as symbols of entities: a world is
_invented_ where they are "at home," and from which they are supposed
to hail.

_In short_: the scandal reaches its apotheosis in Plato.... And then it
was necessary to invent the _perfectly abstract_ man also:--good, just,
wise, and a dialectician to boot--in short, the _scarecrow_ of the
ancient philosopher: a plant without any soil whatsoever; a human race
devoid of all definite ruling instincts; a virtue which "justifies"
itself with reasons. The perfectly absurd "individual" _per se_! the
highest form of _Artificiality...._

Briefly, the denaturalisation of moral values resulted in the creation
of a degenerate _type of man_--"the good man," "the happy man,"
"the wise man."--Socrates represents a moment of the most _profound
perversity_ in the history of values.


431.

_Socrates._--This veering round of Greek taste in favour of dialectics
is a great question. What really happened then? Socrates, the
_roturier_ who was responsible for it, was thus able to triumph over
a more noble taste, the taste of _the noble_:--the mob gets the upper
hand along with dialectics. Previous to Socrates dialectic manners
were repudiated in good society; they were regarded as indecent; the
youths were Warned against them. What was the purpose of this display
of reasons? Why demonstrate? Against others one could use authority.
One commanded, and that sufficed. Among friends, _inter pares,_ there
was tradition--_also_ a form of authority: and last but not least,
one understood each other. There was no room found for dialectics.
Besides, all such modes of presenting reasons were distrusted. All
honest things do not carry their reasons in their hands in such
fashion. It is indecent to show all the five fingers at the same time.
That which can be "demonstrated" is little worth. The instinct of
every party-speaker tells him that dialectics excites mistrust and
carries little conviction. Nothing is more easily wiped away than the
effect of a dialectician. It can only be a _last defence._ One must
be in an extremity; it is necessary to have to _extort_ one's rights;
otherwise one makes no use of dialectics. That is why the Jews were
dialecticians, Reynard the Fox was a dialectician, and so was Socrates.
As a dialectician a person has a merciless instrument in his hand:
he can play the tyrant with it; he compromises when he conquers. The
dialectician leaves it to his opponent to demonstrate that he is not an
idiot; he is made furious and helpless, while the dialectician himself
remains calm and still possessed of his triumphant reasoning powers--he
_paralyses_ his opponent's intellect.--The dialectician's irony is a
form of mob-revenge: the ferocity of the oppressed lies in the cold
knife-cuts of the syllogism....

In Plato, as in all men of excessive sensuality and wild fancies, the
charm of concepts was so great, that he involuntarily honoured and
deified the concept as a form of ideal. _Dialectical intoxication_: as
the consciousness of being able to exercise control over one's self by
means of it--as an instrument of the Will to Power.


432.

_The problem of Socrates._--The two antitheses: the _tragic_ and the
_Socratic_ spirits--measured according to the law of Life.

To what extent is the Socratic spirit a decadent phenomenon? to what
extent are robust health and power still revealed by the whole attitude
of the scientific man, his dialectics, his ability, and his severity?
(the health of the _plebeian_; whose malice, _esprit frondeur,_
whose astuteness, whose rascally depths, are held in check by his
_cleverness_; the whole type is "ugly").

_Uglification_: self-derision, dialectical dryness, intelligence in
the form of a _tyrant_ against the "tyrant" (instinct). Everything in
Socrates is exaggeration, eccentricity, caricature; he is a buffoon
with the blood of Voltaire in his veins.

He discovers a new form of _agon_; he is the first fencing-master in
the superior classed of Athens; he stands for nothing else than the
_highest form of cleverness_: he calls it "virtue" (he regarded it as a
means of _salvation_; he did not choose to be _clever,_ cleverness was
_de rigueur_); the proper thing is to control one's self in suchwise
that one enters into a struggle _not_ with passions but with reasons
as one's weapons (Spinoza's stratagem--the unravelment of the errors
of passion);--it is desirable to discover how every one may be caught
once he is goaded into a passion, and to know how illogically passion
proceeds; self-mockery is practised in order to injure the very roots
of the _feelings of resentment._

It is my wish to understand which idiosyncratic states form a part of
the Socratic problem: its association of reason, virtue, and happiness.
With this absurd doctrine of the identity of these things it succeeded
_in charming_ the world: ancient philosophy could not rid itself of
this doctrine....

Absolute lack of objective interest: hatred of science: the
idiosyncrasy of considering one's self a problem. Acoustic
hallucinations in Socrates: morbid element. When the intellect is
rich and independent, it most strongly resists preoccupying itself
with morality. How is it that Socrates is a _moral-maniac_?--Every
"practical" philosophy immediately steps into the foreground in times
of distress. When morality and religion become the chief interests of a
community, they are signs of a state of distress.


433.

Intelligence, clearness, hardness, and logic as weapons against the_
wildness of the instincts_. The latter must be dangerous and must
threaten ruin, otherwise no purpose can be served by developing
_intelligence_ to this degree of tyranny. In order to make a _tyrant_
of intelligence the instincts must first have proved themselves
tyrants. This is the problem. It was a very timely one in those days.
Reason became virtue--virtue equalled happiness.

_Solution_: Greek philosophers stand upon the same fundamental fact
of their inner experiences as Socrates does; five feet from excess,
from anarchy and from dissolution--all decadent men. They regard him
as a doctor: Logic as will to power, as will to control self, as will
to "happiness." The wildness and anarchy of Socrates' instincts is a
_sign of decadence_, as is also the superfœtation of logic and clear
reasoning in him. Both are abnormities, each belongs to the other.
Criticism. Decadence reveals itself in this concern about "happiness"
(_i.e._ about the "salvation of the soul"; _i.e. to feel that one's
condition is a danger_). Its fanatical interest in "happiness" shows
the pathological condition of the subconscious self: it was a vital
interest. The _alternative_ which faced them all was: to be reasonable
or to perish. The morality of Greek philosophers shows that they felt
they were in danger.


434.

_Why everything resolved itself into mummery.--_Rudimentary
psychology, which only considered the _conscious_ lapses of men (as
causes), which regarded "consciousness" as an attribute of the soul,
and which sought a will behind every action (_i.e._ an intention),
could only answer "_Happiness_" to the question: "_What does man
desire?_" (it was impossible to answer "Power," because that would have
been _immoral)_;--consequently behind all men's actions there is the
intention of attaining to happiness by means of them. Secondly: if man
as a matter of fact does not attain to happiness, why is it? Because he
mistakes the means thereto.--_What is the unfailing means of acquiring
happiness?_ Answer: _virtue._--Why virtue? Because virtue is supreme
rationalness, and rationalness makes mistakes in the choice of means
impossible: virtue in the form of _reason_ is the way to happiness.
Dialectics is the constant occupation of virtue, because it does away
with passion and intellectual cloudiness.

As a matter of fact, man does _not_ desire "happiness." Pleasure is
a sensation of power: if the passions are excluded, those states of
the mind are also excluded which afford the greatest sensation of
power and therefore of pleasure. The highest rationalism is a state of
cool clearness, which is very far from being able to bring about that
feeling of power which every kind of _exaltation_ involves....

The ancient philosophers combat everything that intoxicates and
exalts--everything that impairs the perfect coolness and impartiality
of the mind.... They were consistent with their first false principle:
that consciousness was the _highest,_ the _supreme_ state of mind, the
prerequisite of perfection--whereas the reverse is true....

Any kind of action is imperfect in proportion as it has been willed or
conscious. The philosophers of antiquity _were the greatest duffers_
in practice, "because they condemned themselves" theoretically
to _dufferdom,_.... In practice everything resolved itself into
theatricalness: and he who saw through it, as Pyrrho did, for instance,
thought as everybody did--that is to say, that in goodness and
uprightness "paltry people" were far superior to philosophers.

All the deeper natures of antiquity were disgusted at the _philosophers
of virtue_; all people saw in them was brawlers and actors. (This was
the judgment passed on _Plato_ by _Epicurus_ and _Pyrrho_.)

_Result_: In practical life, in patience, goodness, and mutual
assistance, paltry people were above them:--this is something like the
judgment Dostoiewsky or Tolstoy claims for his muzhiks: they are more
philosophical in practice, they are more courageous in their way of
dealing with the exigencies of life....


435.

_A criticism of the philosopher._--Philosophers and moralists merely
deceive themselves when they imagine that they escape from decadence
by _opposing_ it. That lies beyond their wills: and however little they
may be aware of the fact, it is generally discovered, subsequently that
they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

Let us examine the philosophers of Greece--Plato, for instance. He
it was who separated the instincts from the polis, from the love of
contest, from military efficiency, from art, beauty, the mysteries,
and the belief in tradition and in ancestors.... He was the seducer of
the nobles: he himself seduces through the _roturier_ Socrates.... He
denied all the first principles of the "noble Greek" of sterling worth;
he made dialectics an everyday practice, conspired with the tyrants,
dabbled in politics for the future, and was the example of a man whose
_instincts_ were the example of a man whose _instincts_ were most
perfectly separated from _tradition._ He is profound and passionate in
everything that is _anti-Hellenic_....

One after the other, these great philosophers represent the _typical_
forms of decadence: the moral and religious idiosyncrasy, anarchy,
nihilism, (ἀδιαφορία), cynicism, hardening principles, hedonism, and
reaction.

The question of "happiness," of "virtue," and of the "salvation of the
soul," is the expression of _physiological contradictoriness_ in these
declining natures: their instincts lack all _balance_ and _purpose._


436.

To what extent do dialectics and the faith in reason rest upon _moral_
prejudices? With Plato we are as the temporary inhabitants of an
intelligible world of goodness, still in possession of a bequest from
former times: divine dialectics taking its root in goodness leads to
everything good (it follows, therefore, that it must lead "backwards").
Even Descartes had a notion of the fact that, according to a thoroughly
Christian and moral attitude of mind, which includes a belief in a
_good_ God as the Creator of all things, the truthfulness of God
_guarantees_ the judgments of our senses for us. But for this religious
sanction and warrant of our senses and our reason, whence should
we obtain our right to trust in existence? That thinking must be a
measure of reality,--that what cannot be the subject of thought, cannot
_exist,_--is a coarse _non plus ultra_ of a moral blind confidence
(in the essential principle of truth at the root of all things); this
in itself is a mad assumption which our experience contradicts every
minute. We cannot think of anything precisely as it is....


437.

The real _philosophers of Greece_ are those which came before Socrates
(with Socrates something changes). They are all distinguished men,
they take their stand away from the people and from usage; they have
travelled; they are earnest to the point of sombreness, their eyes
are calm, and they are not unacquainted with the business of state and
diplomacy. They anticipated all the great concepts which coming sages
were to have concerning things in general: they themselves represented
these concepts, they made systems out of themselves. Nothing run give a
higher idea of Greek intellect than this sudden fruitfulness in types,
than this involuntary completeness in the drawing up of all the great
possibilities of the philosophical ideal. I can see only one original
figure in those that came afterwards: a late arrival but necessarily
the last--_Pyrrho_ the nihilist. His instincts were opposed to the
influences which had become ascendant in the mean-time the Socratic
school, Plato, and the artistic optimism of Heraclitus. (Pyrrho goes
back to Democritus _via_ Protagoras....)

***

Wise weariness: Pyrrho. To live humbly among the humble. Devoid of
pride. To live in the vulgar way; to honour and believe what every
one believes. To be on one's guard against science and intellect, and
against everything that _puffs one out._ ... To be simply patient
in the extreme, careless and mild;--_ὰπάθεια_ or, better still,
πραῢτης. A Buddhist for Greece, bred amid the tumult of the
Schools; born alter his time; weary; an example of the protest of
weariness against the eagerness of dialecticians; the incredulity of
the tired man in regard to the importance of everything. He had seen
_Alexander_; he had seen the _Indian penitents._ To such late-arrivals
and creatures of great subtlety, everything lowly, poor, and idiotic,
is seductive. It narcoticises: it gives them relaxation (Pascal).
On the other hand, they mix with the crowd, and get confounded
with the rest. These weary creatures need warmth.... To overcome
contradiction; to do away with contests; to have no will to excel in
any way; to deny the _Greek_ instincts (Pyrrho lived with his sister,
who was a midwife.) To rig out wisdom in such a way that it no longer
distinguishes; to give it the ragged mantle of poverty; to perform
the lowest offices, and to go to market and sell sucking-pigs....
Sweetness, clearness, indifference; no need of virtues that require
attitudes; to be equal to all even in virtue: final conquest of one's
self, final indifference.

Pyrrho and Epicurus;--two forms of Greek decadence; they are related
in their hatred of dialectics and all _theatrical_ virtues. These
two things together were then called philosophy; Pyrrho and Epicurus
intentionally held that which they loved in low esteem; they chose
common and even contemptible names for it, and they represented a state
in which one is neither ill, healthy, lively, nor dead.... Epicurus was
more _naïf,_ more idyllic, more grateful; Pyrrho had more experience of
the world, had travelled more, and was more nihilistic. His life was a
protest against the great _doctrine of Identity_ (Happiness = Virtue =
Knowledge). The proper way of living is not promoted by science: wisdom
does not make "wise." ... The proper way of living does not desire
happiness, it turns away from happiness....


438.

The war against the "old faith," as Epicurus waged it, was, strictly
speaking, a struggle against _pre-existing_ Christianity--the struggle
against a world then already gloomy, moralised, acidified throughout
with feelings of guilt, and grown old and sick.

Not the "moral corruption" of antiquity, but precisely its _moral
infectedness_ was the prerequisite which enabled Christianity to become
its master. Moral fanaticism (in short: Plato) destroyed paganism by
transvaluing its values and poisoning its innocence. We ought at last
to understand that what was then destroyed was _higher_ than what
prevailed! Christianity grew on the soil of psychological corruption,
and could only take root in rotten ground.


439.

Science: as a disciplinary measure or as an instinct--I see a decline
of the instincts in Greek philosophers: otherwise they could not have
been guilty of the profound error of regarding the conscious state
as the more valuable state. The intensity of consciousness stands in
the inverse ratio to the ease and speed of cerebral transmission.
Greek philosophy upheld the opposite view, which is always the sign of
weakened instincts.

We must, in sooth, seek _perfect life_ there where it is least
conscious (that is to say, there where it is least aware of its logic,
its reasons, its means, its intentions, and its _utility)._ The return
to the facts of _common sense,_ the facts of the common man and of
"paltry people." _Honesty and intelligence_ stored up for generations
of people who are quite unconscious of their principles, and who
even have some fear of principles. It is not reasonable to desire a
_reasoning virtue._ ... A philosopher is compromised by such a desire.


440.

When morality--that is to say, refinement, prudence, bravery, and
equity--have been stored up in the same way, thanks to the moral
efforts of a whole succession of generations, the collective power of
this hoard of virtue projects its rays even into that sphere where
honesty is most seldom present--the sphere of _intellect._ When a
thing becomes conscious, it is the sign of a state of ill-ease in
the organism; something new has got to be found, the organism is not
satisfied or adapted, it is subject to distress, suspense, and it is
hypersensitive--precisely all this is consciousness....

Gennius lies in the instincts; goodness does too. One only acts
perfectly when one acts instinctively. Even from the moral point of
view all thinking which is conscious is merely a process of groping,
and in the majority of cases an attack on morality. Scientific honesty
is always sacrificed when a thinker begins to reason: let any one try
the experiment: put the wisest man in the balance, and then let him
discourse upon morality....

It could also be proved that the whole of a man's _conscious_ thinking
shows a much lower standard of morality than the thoughts of the same
man would show if they were led by his _instincts._


441.

The struggle against Socrates, Plato, and all the Socratic schools,
proceeds from the profound instinct that man _is_ not made _better_
when he is shown that virtue may be demonstrated or based upon
reason.... This in the end is the niggardly fact, it was the agonal
instinct in all these born dialecticians, which drove them to glorify
their _personal abilities_ as the _highest of all qualities,_ and to
represent every other form of goodness as conditioned by them. The
_anti-scientific_ spirit of all this "philosophy": it _will never admit
that it is not right._


442.

This is extraordinary. From its very earliest beginnings, Greek
philosophy carries on a struggle against science with the weapons of
a theory of knowledge, especially of scepticism; and why is this? It
is always in favour of _morality...._ (Physicists and medical men
are hated.) Socrates, Aristippus, the Megarian school, the Cynics,
Epicurus and Pyrrho--a general onslaught upon knowledge in favour
of _morality...._ (Hatred of dialectics also.) There is still a
problem to be solved: they approach sophistry in order to be rid of
science. On the other hand, the physicists are subjected to such an
extent that, among their first principles, they include the theory of
truth and of real being: for instance, the atom, the four elements
(_juxtaposition_ of being, in order to explain its multiformity and its
transformations). Contempt of _objectivity_ in interests is taught:
return to practical interest, and to the personal utility of all
knowledge....

The struggle against science is directed at: (1) its pathos
(objectivity); (2) its means (that is to say, at its utility); (3) its
results (which are considered childish). It is the same struggle which
is taken up later on by the _Church_ in the name of piety: the Church
inherited the whole arsenal of antiquity for her war with science. The
theory of knowledge played the same part in the affair as it did in
Kant's or the Indians' case. There is no desire whatever to be troubled
with it, a free hand is wanted for the "purpose" that is envisaged.

Against what powers are they actually defending themselves? Against
dutifulness, against obedience to law, against the compulsion of going
hand in hand--I believe this is what is called _Freedom...._

This is how decadence manifests itself: the instinct of solidarity is
so degenerate that solidarity itself gets to be regarded as _tyranny_:
no authority or solidarity is brooked, nobody any longer desires to
fall in with the rank and file, and to adopt its ignobly slow pace. The
slow movement which is the tempo of science is generally hated, as are
also the scientific man's indifference in regard to getting on, his
long breath, and his impersonal attitude.


443.

At bottom, morality is _hostile_ to science: Socrates was so already
too--and the reason is, that science considers certain things important
which have no relation whatsoever to "good" and "evil," and which
therefore reduce the gravity of our feelings concerning "good" and
"evil." What morality requires is that the whole of a man should serve
it with all his power: it considers it waste on the part of a creature
that _can ill afford waste,_ when a man earnestly troubles his head
about stars or plants. That is why science very quickly declined
in Greece, once Socrates had inoculated scientific work with the
disease of morality. The mental attitudes reached by a Democritus, a
Hippocrates, and a Thucydides, have not been reached a second time.--


444.

The problem of the _philosopher_ and of the _scientific_ man.--The
influence of age; depressing habits (sedentary study _à la_ Kant;
over-work; inadequate nourishment of the brain; reading). A more
essential question still: is it not already perhaps a _symptom_ of
decadence when thinking tends to establish _generalities_?

_Objectivity regarded as the disintegration of the will_ (to be able
to remain as detached as possible ...). This presupposes a tremendous
adiaphora in regard to the strong passions: a kind of isolation, an
exceptional position, opposition to the normal passions.

Type: desertion of _home-country_ emigrants go ever greater distances
afield; growing exoticism; the voice of the old imperative dies
away;--and the continual question "whither?" ("happiness") is a sign
of _emancipation_ from forms of organisation, a sign of breaking loose
from everything.

Problem: is the man of _science_ more of a decadent symptom than the
philosopher?--as a _whole_ scientific man is not, cut loose from
everything, only a part of his being is consecrated exclusively to the
service of knowledge and disciplined to maintain a special attitude and
point of view; in his department he is in need of _all_ the virtues
of a strong race, of robust health, of great severity, manliness and
intelligence. He is rather a symptom of the great multiformity of
culture than of the effeteness of the latter. The decadent scholar
is a _bad_ scholar. Whereas the decadent philosopher has always been
reckoned hitherto as the typical philosopher.


445.

Among philosophers, nothing is more rare than _intellectual
uprightness_: they perhaps say the very reverse, and even believe it.
But the prerequisite of all their work is, that they can only admit
of certain truths; they know what they _have_ to prove; and the fact
that they must be agreed as to these "truths" is almost what makes them
recognise one another as philosophers. There are, for instance, the
truths of morality. But belief in morality is not a proof of morality:
there are cases--and the philosopher's case is one in point--when a
belief of this sort is simply a piece of _immorality_.


446.

_What is the retrograde factor in a philosopher?_--He teaches that
the qualities which he happens to possess are the only qualities that
exist, that they are indispensable to those who wish to attain to the
"highest good" (for instance, dialectics with Plato). He would have
all men raise themselves, _gradatim,_ to _his_ type as the highest. He
despises what is generally esteemed--by him a gulf is cleft between
the highest _priestly_ values and the values of the _world._ He knows
what is true, who God is, what every one's goal should be, and the way
thereto.... The typical philosopher is thus an absolute dogmatist;--if
he _requires_ scepticism at all it is only in order to be able to speak
dogmatically of his _principal purpose_.


447.

When the philosopher is confronted with his rival--science, for
instance, he becomes a sceptic; then he appropriates a _form of
knowledge_ which he denies to the man of science; he goes hand in
hand with the priest so that he may not be suspected of atheism or
materialism; he considers an attack made upon himself as an attack
upon morals, religion, virtue, and order--he knows how to bring his
opponents into ill repute by calling them "seducers" and "underminers":
then he marches shoulder to shoulder with power.

The philosopher at war with other philosophers:--he does his best
to compel them to appear like anarchists, disbelievers, opponents of
authority. In short, when he fights, he fights exactly like a priest
and like the priesthood.




3. THE TRUTHS AND ERRORS OF PHILOSOPHERS.



448.

Philosophy defined by Kant: "_The science of the limitations of
reason_"!!


449.

According to Aristotle, Philosophy is the art of discovering truth. On
the other hand, the Epicurians, who availed themselves of Aristotle's
_sensual_ theory of knowledge, retorted in ironical opposition to the
search for truth: "Philosophy is the art of _Life._"


450.

_The three great naïvetés:--_

Knowledge as a means of happiness (as if ...);

Knowledge as a means to virtue (as if ...);

Knowledge as a means to the "denial of Life"--inasmuch as it leads to
disappointment--(as if ...).


451.

As if there were a "truth" which one could by some means approach!


452.

Error and ignorance are fatal.--The assumption that _truth has been
found_ and that ignorance and error are at an end, constitutes one
of the most seductive thoughts in the world. Granted that it be
generally accepted, it paralyses the will to test, to investigate,
to be cautious, and to gather experience: it may even be regarded as
criminal--that is to say, as a _doubt_ concerning truth....

"Truth" is therefore more fatal than error and ignorance, because it
paralyses the forces which lead to enlightenment and knowledge. The
passion for _idleness_ now stands up for "truth" ("Thought is pain
and misery!"), as also do order, rule, the joy of possession, the
pride of wisdom--in fact, _vanity._--it is easier to _obey_ than to
_examine_; it is more gratifying to think "I possess the truth," than
to see only darkness in all directions; ... but, above all, it is
reassuring, it lends confidence, and alleviates life--it "improves"
the character inasmuch as it _reduces mistrust._" Spiritual peace," "a
quiet conscience"--these things are inventions which are only possible
provided "_Truth be found._"--"By their fruits ye shall know them." ...
"Truth" is the truth because it makes men _better...._ The process goes
on: all goodness and all success is placed to the credit of "truth."

This is the _proof by success_: the happiness, contentment, and the
welfare of a community or of an individual, are now understood to be
the _result of the belief in morality_.... Conversely: _failure_ is
ascribed to a _lack_ of faith.


453.

The causes of error lie just as much in the _good_ as in the _bad will_
of man:--in an incalculable number of cases he conceals reality from
himself, he falsifies it, so that he may not suffer from his good or
bad will. God, for instance, is considered the shaper of man's destiny;
he interprets his little lot as though everything were intentionally
sent to him for the salvation of his soul,--this act of ignorance in
"philology," which to a more subtle intellect would seem unclean and
false, is done, in the majority of cases, with perfect _good faith._
Goodwill, "noble feelings," and "lofty states of the soul" are just as
underhand and deceptive in the means they use as are the passions love,
hatred, and revenge, which morality has repudiated and declared to be
egotistic.

Errors are what mankind has had to pay for most dearly: and taking them
all in all, the errors which have resulted from goodwill are those
which have wrought the most harm. The illusion which makes people
happy is more harmful than the illusion which is immediately followed
by evil results: the latter increases keenness and mistrust, and
purifies, the understanding; the former merely narcoticises....

Fine feelings and noble impulses ought, speaking physiologically, to be
classified with the narcotics: their abuse is followed by precisely the
same results as the abuse of any other opiate--_weak nerves_.


454.

Error is the most expensive luxury that man can indulge in: and if the
error happen to be a physiological one, it is fatal to life. What has
mankind paid for most dearly hitherto? For its "truths ": for every one
of these were errors _in physiologicis>_....


455.

Psychological _confusions_: the _desire for belief_ is confounded with
the "will to truth" (for instance, in Carlyle). But the _desire for
disbelief_ has also been confounded with the "will to truth" (a need of
ridding one's self of a belief for a hundred reasons: in order to carry
one's point against certain "believers"). _What is it that inspires
Sceptics?_ The hatred of dogmatists--or a need of repose, weariness as
in Pyrrho's case.

The _advantages_ which were expected to come from truth, were the
advantages resulting from a belief in _it_: for, in itself, truth could
have been thoroughly painful, harmful, and even fatal. Likewise truth
was combated only on account of the advantages which a victory over it
would provide--for instance, emancipation from the yoke of the ruling
powers.

The method of truth was _not_ based upon motives of truthfulness, but
upon _motives of power, upon the desire to be superior._

_How is_ truth _proved_? By means of the feeling of increased
power,--by means of utility,--by means of indispensability,--_in short,
by means of its advantages_ (that is to say, hypotheses concerning what
truth should be like in order that it may be embraced by us). But this
involves _prejudice_: it is a sign that _truth_ does not enter the
question at all....

What is the meaning of the "will to truth," for instance in the
Goncourts? and in the _naturalists_?--A criticism of "objectivity."

Why should we know: why should we not prefer to be deceived?...
But what was needed was always belief--and _not_ truth.... Belief
is created by means which are quite _opposed_ to the method of
investigation: _it even depends upon the exclusion of the latter._


456.

A certain degree of faith suffices to-day to give us an _objection_
to what is believed--it does more, it makes us question the spiritual
healthiness of the believer.


457.

_Martyrs._--To combat anything that is based upon reverence, opponents
must be possessed of both daring and recklessness, and be hindered
by no scruples.... Now, if one considers that for thousands of
years man has sanctified as truths only those things which were in
reality errors, and that he has branded any criticism of them with
the hall-mark of badness, one will have to acknowledge, however
reluctantly, that a goodly amount of _immoral deeds_ were necessary in
order to give the initiative to an attack--I mean to _reason...._ That
these immoralists have always posed as the "martyrs of truth" should
be forgiven them: the truth of the matter is that they did not stand
up and deny owing to an instinct for truth; but because of a love of
dissolution, criminal scepticism, and the love of adventure. In other
cases it is personal rancour which drives them into the province of
problems--they only combat certain points of view in order to be
able to carry their point against certain people. But, above all, it
is revenge which has become scientifically useful--the revenge of the
oppressed, those who, thanks to the truth that happens to be ruling,
have been pressed aside and even smothered....

Truth, that is to say the scientific method, was grasped and favoured
by such as recognised that it was a useful weapon of war--an instrument
of _destruction_....

In order to be honoured as opponents, they were moreover obliged
to use an apparatus similar to that used by those whom they were
attacking: they therefore brandished the concept "truth" as absolutely
as their adversaries did--they became fanatics at least in their
poses, because no other pose could be expected to be taken seriously.
What still remained to be done was left to persecution, to passion,
and the uncertainty of the persecuted--hatred waxed great, and the
first impulse began to die away and to leave the field entirely to
science. Ultimately all of them wanted to be right in the same absurd
way as their opponents.... The word "conviction," "faith," the pride
of martyrdom--these things are most unfavourable to knowledge. The
adversaries of truth finally adopt the whole subjective manner of
deciding about truth,--that is to say, by means of poses, sacrifices,
and heroic resolutions,--and thus _prolong_ the _dominion_ of the
anti-scientific method. As martyrs they compromise their very own deed.


458.

_The dangerous distinction between "theoretical" and "practical"_ in
Kant for instance, but also in the ancient philosophers:--they behave
as if pure intellectuality presented them with the problems of science
and metaphysics;--they behave as if practice should be judged by a
measure of its own, whatever the judgment of theory may be.

Against the first tendency I set up my _psychology of philosophers_:
their strangest calculations and "intellectuality" are still but the
last pallid impress of a physiological fact; spontaneity is absolutely
lacking in them, everything is instinct, everything is intended to
follow a certain direction from the first....

Against the second tendency I put my question: whether we know another
method of acting correctly, besides that of thinking correctly;
the last case _is_ action, the first presupposes thought Are we
possessed of a means whereby we can judge of the value of a method
of life differently from the value of a theory: through induction or
comparison?... Guileless people imagine that in this respect we are
better equipped, we know what is "good"--and the philosophers are
content to repeat this view. We conclude that some sort of _faith_ is
at work in this matter, and nothing more....

"Men must act; _consequently_ rules of conduct are necessary"--this is
what even the ancient Sceptics thought. The _urgent need_ of a definite
decision in this department of knowledge is used as an argument in
favour of regarding something as _true_!...

"Men must not act"--said their more consistent brothers, the Buddhists,
and then thought out a mode of conduct which would deliver man from the
yoke of action....

To adapt one's self, to live as the "_common man_" lives, and to regard
as right and proper what _he_ regards as right: this is _submission_ to
the _gregarious instinct._ One must carry one's courage and severity
so far as to learn to consider such submission a _disgrace._ One should
not live according to two standards!... One should not separate theory
and practice!...


459.

Of all that which was formerly held to be true, not one word is to be
credited. Everything which was formerly disdained as unholy, forbidden,
contemptible, and fatal--all these flowers now bloom on the most
charming paths of truth.

The whole of this old morality concerns us no longer: it contains not
one idea which is still worthy of respect. We have outlived it--we
are no longer sufficiently coarse and guileless to be forced to allow
ourselves to be lied to in this way.... In more polite language: we are
too virtuous for it.... And if truth in the old sense were "true" only
because the old morality said "yea" to it, and _had a right_ to say
"yea" to it: it follows that no truth of the past can any longer be of
use to us.... Our _criterion_ of truth is /certainly not morality: we
_refute_ an assertion when we show that it is dependent upon morality
and is inspired by noble feelings.


460.

All these values are empirical and conditioned. But he who believes
in them and who honours them, _refuses_ to acknowledge this aspect of
them. All philosophers believe in these values, and one form their
reverence takes is the endeavour to make _a priori truths_ out of them.
The falsifying nature of _reverence_....

Reverence is the supreme test of intellectual _honesty,_ but in the
whole history of philosophy there is no such thing as intellectual
honesty,--but the "love of goodness ..."

On the one hand, there is an absolute _lack of method_ in testing the
value of these values; _secondly,_ there is a general disinclination
either to test them or to regard them as conditioned at all.--All
_anti-scientific_ instincts assembled round moral values in order to
_keep science out_ of this department....



4. CONCLUDING REMARKS IN THE CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.



461.

_Why philosophers are slanderers._--The artful and blind hostility
of philosophers towards the _senses_--what an amount of _mob_ and
_middle-class_ qualities lie in all this hatred!

The crowd always believes that an abuse of which it feels the harmful
results, constitutes an _objection_ to the thing which happens to be
abused: all insurrectionary movements against principles, whether in
politics or agriculture, always follow a line of argument suggested by
this ulterior motive: the abuse must be shown to be necessary to, and,
inherent in, the principle.

It is a _woeful_ history: mankind looks for a principle, from the
standpoint of which he will be able to contemn man--he invents a world
in order to be able to slander and throw mud at this world: as a matter
of fact, he snatches every time at nothing, and construes this nothing
as "God," as "Truth," and, in any case, as judge and detractor of
_this_ existence....

If one should require a proof of how deeply and thoroughly the actually
_barbarous_ needs of man, even in his present state of tameness and
"civilisation," still seek gratification, one should contemplate the
"leitmotifs" of the whole of the evolution of philosophy:--a sort
of revenge upon reality, a surreptitious process of destroying the
values by means of which men live, a _dissatisfied_ soul to which
the conditions of discipline is one of torture, and which takes a
particular pleasure in morbidly severing all the bonds that bind it to
such a condition.

The history of philosophy is the story of a _secret and mad hatred_
of the prerequisities of Life, of the feelings which make for the
real values of Life, and of all partisanship in favour of Life.
Philosophers have never hesitated to affirm a fanciful world, provided
it contradicted this world, and furnished them with a weapon wherewith
they could calumniate this world. Up to the present, philosophy has
been the _grand school of slander_: and its power has been so great,
that even to-day our science, which pretends to be the advocate of
Life, has _accepted_ the fundamental position of slander, and treats
this world as "appearance," and this chain of causes as though it were
only phenomenal. What is the hatred which is active here?

I fear that it is still the _Circe of philosophers--_Morality, which
plays them the trick of compelling them to be ever slanderers.... They
believed in moral "truths," in these they thought they had found the
highest values; what alternative had they left, save that of denying
existence ever more emphatically the more they got to know about it?...
For this life is _immoral...._ And it is based upon immoral first
principles: and morality says _nay_ to Life.

Let us suppress the real world: and in order to do this, we must first
suppress the highest values current hitherto--morals.... It is enough
to show that morality itself _is immoral,_ in the same sense as that in
which immorality has been condemned heretofore. If an end be thus made
to the tyranny of the former values, if we have suppressed the "real
world," a _new order of values_ must follow of its own accord.

The world of appearance and the world _of lies_: this constitutes the
contradiction. The latter hitherto has been the "real world," "truth,"
"God." This is the one which we still have to suppress.

The _logic of my conception_:

(1) _Morality as the highest value_ (it is master of _all_ the phases
of philosophy, even of the Sceptics). _Result_: this world is no good,
it is not the "real world."

(2) _What_ is it that determines the highest value here? What, in
sooth, is morality?--It is the instinct of _decadence_; it is the
means whereby the exhausted and the degenerate _revenge themselves._
_Historical_ proof: philosophers have always been decadents ... in the
service of _nihilistic_ religions.

(3) It is the instinct of decadence coming to the fore as _will to
power._ Proof: the absolute _immorality_ of the means employed by
morality throughout its history.

General aspect: the values which have been highest hitherto constitute
a specific case of the will to power; morality itself is a specific
case of immorality.


462.

_The principal innovations_: Instead of "moral values," nothing but
_naturalistic values._ Naturalisation of morality.

In the place of "sociology," a _doctrine of the forms of dominion._

In the place of "society," the _complex whole of culture,_ which is
_my_ chief interest (whether in its entirety or in parts).

In the place of the "theory of knowledge," a _doctrine which laid down
the value of the passions_ (to this a hierarchy of the passions would
belong: the passions _transfigured_; their _superior rank,_ their
"_spirituality_").

In the place of "metaphysics" and religion, the doctrine of _Eternal
Recurrence_ (this being regarded as a means to the breeding and
selection of men).


463.

My precursors: Schopenhauer. To what extent I deepened pessimism, and
first brought its full meaning within my grasp, by means of its most
extreme opposite.

Likewise: the higher Europeans, the pioneers of _great politics._

Likewise: the Greeks and their genesis.


464.

I have named those who were unconsciously my workers and precursors.
But in what direction may I turn with any hope of finding my particular
kind of philosophers themselves, or at least _my yearning for new
philosophers_? In that direction, alone, where a _noble_ attitude of
mind prevails, an attitude of mind which believes in slavery and in
manifold orders of rank, as the prerequisites of any high degree of
culture. In that direction, alone, where a _creative_ attitude of
mind prevails, an attitude of mind which does not regard the world
of happiness and repose, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths" as an end to be
desired, and which, even in peace, honours the means which lead to new
wars; an attitude of mind which would prescribe laws for the future,
which for the sake of the future would treat everything that exists
to-day with harshness and even tyranny; a daring and "immoral" attitude
of mind, which would wish to see both the good and the evil qualities
in man developed to their fullest extent, because it would feel itself
able to put each in its right place--that is to say, in that place in
which each would need the other. But what prospect has he of finding
what he seeks, who goes in search of philosophers to-day? Is it not
probable that, even with the best Diogenes-lantern in his hand, he will
wander about by night and day in vain? This age is possessed of the
_opposite_ instincts. What it wants, above all, is comfort; secondly,
it wants publicity and the deafening din of actors' voices, the big
drum which appeals to its Bank-Holiday tastes; thirdly, that every
one should lie on his belly in utter subjection before the greatest
of all lies--which is "the equality of men"--and should honour only
those virtues which _make men equal and place them in equal positions._
But in this way, the rise of the philosopher, as I understand him, is
made completely impossible--despite the fact that many may regard the
present tendencies as rather favourable to his advent. As a matter of
fact, the whole world mourns, to-day, the hard times that philosophers
_used_ to have, hemmed in between the fear of the stake, a guilty
conscience, and the presumptuous wisdom of the Fathers of the Church:
but the truth is, that precisely these conditions were _ever so much
more favourable_ to the education of a mighty, extensive, subtle,
rash, and daring intellect than the conditions prevailing to-day. At
present another kind of intellect, the intellect of the demagogue, of
the actor, and perhaps of the beaver- and ant-like scholar too, finds
the best possible conditions for its development. But even for artists
of a superior calibre the conditions are already far from favourable:
for does not every one of them, almost, perish owing to his want of
discipline? They are no longer tyrannised over by an outside power--by
the tables of absolute values enforced by a Church or by a monarch:
and thus they no longer learn to develop their "inner tyrant," their
_will._ And what holds good of artists also holds good, to a greater
and more fatal degree, of philosophers. Where, then, are free spirits
to be found to-day? Let any one show me a free spirit to-day!


465.

Under "Spiritual freedom" I understand something very definite: it is
a state in which one is a hundred times superior to philosophers and
other disciples of "truth" in one's severity towards one's self, in
one's uprightness, in one's courage, and in one's absolute will to say
nay even when it is dangerous to say nay. I regard the philosophers
that have appeared heretofore as _contemptible libertines_ hiding
behind the petticoats of the female "Truth."

END OF VOL. I.






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Will to Power, Book I and II, by 
Friedrich Nietzsche

*** 