VII Beyond Good and Evil

Double purpose animated Nietzsche in his writing of "Beyond Good and Evil" ("Jenseits von Gut und B?se"). It is at once an explanation and an elucidation of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and a preparatory book for his greatest and most important work, "The Will to Power." In it Nietzsche attempts to define the relative terms of "good" and "evil," and to draw a line of distinction between immorality and unmorality.

He saw the inconsistencies evolved in the attempt to harmonise an ancient moral code with the needs of modern life, and recognised the compromises which were constantly being made between moral theory and social practice. His object was to establish a relationship between morality and necessity, and to formulate a workable basis for human conduct. Consequently "Beyond Good and Evil" is one of his most important contributions to a new system of ethics, and touches on many of the deepest principles of his philosophy. As it stands, it is by no means a complete expression of Nietzsche's doctrines, but it is sufficiently profound and suggestive to be of valuable service in an understanding of his later works. The book was begun in the summer of 1885 and finished the following winter. Again there was difficulty with publishers, and finally the book was issued at the author's own expense in the autumn of 1886.

[Pg 174]

Nietzsche opens "Beyond Good and Evil" with a long chapter headed "Prejudices of Philosophers," in which he outlines the course to be taken by his dialectic. The exposition is accomplished by two methods: first, by an analysis and a refutation of the systems of thinking made use of by antecedent doctrinaires, and secondly, by defining the hypotheses on which his own philosophy is built. This chapter is a most important one, setting forth, as it does, the rationale of his doctrine of the will to power. It has been impossible to make extracts of any unified sequence from this chapter because of its intricate and compact reasoning, and the student would do well to read it in its entirety. It establishes Nietzsche's philosophic position and presents a closely knit explanation of the course pursued in the following chapters. The relativity of all truth-the hypothesis so often assumed in his previous work-Nietzsche here defends by analogy and argument. Using other leading forms of philosophy as a ground for exploration, he questions the absolutism of truth and shows wherein lies the difficulty of a final definition. Here we become conscious of that plasticity of mind which was the dominating quality of his thinking. It is not, however, that form of plasticity which on inspection resolves itself into amorphic and unstable reasoning, but a logical, almost scientific, method of valuing. The mercurial habits of the metaphysicians who deny absolutism are nowhere discernible in Nietzsche's thought. His mind is definite without being static. The basis of his argumentation is what one might call floating. It rises and falls with the human tide of causation; yet the structure built upon it remains at all times upright and unchanged.

Nietzsche points out that the numerous "logical"[Pg 175] conclusions of philosophers have been for the most part a priori propositions, the results of prejudices or desires, and that the syllogistic structures reared to them came as explanations and defences, rather than as dialectic preambles. In their adopting a hypothetical truth as a premise, he sees only the advocacy for a point of view, arguing that in order to erect a system of logic the initial thesis must be proved. Therefore he questions the fundamental worth of certainty as opposed to uncertainty, and of truth as opposed to falsity, thus striking at the very foundations reared by those philosophers who have assumed, without substantiation, that only certainty and truth are valuable. Nietzsche calls these absolutists astute defenders of prejudices, and characterises the verbalistic prestidigitation of Kant as a highly developed form of prejudice-defending. Spinoza, with his mathematical system of reasoning, likewise falls in the category of those thinkers who first assume conclusions and then prepare explanations for them by a process of inverted reasoning. Nietzsche proceeds to pose the instinctive functions against conscious thinking. He asserts that the channels taken by thought are defined by the thinker's nature, and that even logic is influenced by physiological considerations. The whole fabric of philosophic thought is held up to the light of immediate necessity.

Going further, he inquires into the "impulse to knowledge." He finds that a specific purpose has always been the actuating force of any philosophy, and that consequently philosophy, even in its most abstract form, has had a residuum of autobiography in it. In fine, that philosophy, far from being a search, has been an aim toward a definite preconceived result. The moral or[Pg 176] ethical impulse, being always imperious, has not infrequently resulted in philosophising, and in all such cases knowledge has been used as an instrument. Thus knowledge which led to a philosophical conclusion has been the outgrowth of a personal instinct. In those cases where an impersonal "impulse to knowledge" may have existed, it has led, not into philosophical channels, but into practical and often commercial activities. The scholar has ever remained personal in his quest for philosophical formulas. In Kant's "Table of Categories," wherein that philosopher claimed to have found the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori, Nietzsche finds only a circle of reasoning which begins and ends in personal instinct. And in Kant's discovery of a new moral faculty, Nietzsche sees only sophistical invention, and accounts for its widespread acceptance by the moral state of the Germans at that period. Ignoring the possibility of synthetic judgments a priori, Nietzsche advances the query as to their necessity, and lays stress on the impracticability of truth without belief. The inherent falsity or truth of a proposition has no bearing on philosophical doctrines so long as a contrary belief is present, a belief such as we exert toward the illusions of the world of reality when we make practical use of that world's perspective.

The schemes of personal philosophy, such, for instance, as we find in Schopenhauer, are dealt with by Nietzsche in a single paragraph: "When I analyse the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily[Pg 177] be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking-that I know what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I compare my state at the present moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is: on account of this retrospective connection with further 'knowledge,' it has at any rate no immediate certainty for me." Thus the smug materialistic philosopher finds himself necessitated to fall back on purely metaphysical explanations for answers to the questions arising out of his definition of truth.

Locke falls under a critical survey in this chapter. In answer to this thinker's theory regarding the origin of ideas, Nietzsche names the great cycles of philosophical systems and calls attention to the similarity of processes in such cycles. Furthermore, he shows that the foundations of all previous philosophies are discoverable in the new styles of contemporaneous thought. And in those national schools of philosophy conceived in languages which stem from the same origin, he finds an undeniable resemblance. All of which leads to a conclusion incompatible with Locke's theory. Nietzsche attacks the conclusions of the physicists, denying them any place in philosophy because their research consists solely in interpretations of natural laws in accordance with their own prejudices and beliefs. The theories which might be[Pg 178] deduced from natural phenomena are not discoverable in their doctrines; their activities have consisted in twisting natural events to suit preconceived valuations.

Finally Nietzsche inquires into the habits and practices of psychologists. Not even among these workers does he find a basis for philosophy. Psychology, he argues, has been guided, not by a detached and lofty desire to ascertain truth in its relation to the human mind, but by prejudices and fears grounded in moral considerations. He finds a constant desire on the part of experimenters to account for "good" impulses as distinguished from "bad" ones. And in this desire lies the superimposing of moral prejudices on a science which, more than all others, deals with problems farthest removed from moral influences. These prejudices in psychology, as well as in all branches of philosophy, are the obstacles which stand in the way of any deep penetration into the motives beneath human conduct. Nietzsche, in his analyses and criticisms, is not solely destructive: he is subterraneously constructing his own philosophical system founded on the will to power. This phrase is used many times in the careful research of the first chapter. As the book proceeds, this doctrine develops.

Nietzsche's best definition of what he calls the "free spirit," namely: the thinking man, the intellectual aristocrat, the philosopher and ruler, is contained in the twenty-six pages of the second chapter of "Beyond Good and Evil." In a series of paragraphs-longer than is Nietzsche's wont-the leading characteristics of this superior man are described. The "free spirit," however, must not be confused with the superman. The former is the "bridge" which the present-day man must cross in the process of surpassing himself. In the delineation[Pg 179] and analysis of him, as presented to us here, we can glimpse his most salient mental features. Heretofore, as in "Thus Spake Zarathustra," he has been but partially and provisionally defined. Now his instincts and desires, his habits and activities are outlined. Furthermore, we are given an explanation of his relation to the inferior man and to the organisms of his environment. The chapter is an important one, for at many points it is a subtle elucidation of many of Nietzsche's dominant philosophic principles. By inference, the differences of class distinction are strictly drawn. The slave-morality (sklavmoral) and the master-morality (herrenmoral), though as yet undefined, are balanced against each other; and the deportmental standards of the masters and slaves are defined by way of differentiating between these two opposing human factions. While the serving class is constantly manifesting its need of a guiding dogma, the ruling class is constantly approaching the state wherein the arbitrary moral mandates are denied. Nietzsche sees a new order of philosophers appearing-men who will stand beyond good and evil, who will be not only free spirits, "but something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different." In describing these men of the future, of which the present free men are the heralds and forerunners, Nietzsche establishes an individualistic ideal which he develops fully in later chapters.

A keen and far-reaching analysis of the various aspects assumed by religious faith constitutes a third section of "Beyond Good and Evil." Though touching upon various influences of Christianity, this section is more general in its religious scope than even "The Antichrist," many indications of which are to be found here. This chapter has to do with the numerous inner experiences of man,[Pg 180] which are directly or indirectly attributable to religious doctrines. The origin of the instinct for faith itself is sought, and the results of this faith are balanced against the needs of the individuals and of the race. The relation between religious ecstasy and sensuality; the attempt on the part of religious practitioners to arrive at a negation of the will; the transition from religious gratitude to fear; the psychology at the bottom of saint-worship;-to problems such as these Nietzsche devotes his energies in his inquiry of the religious mood. The geographical considerations which enter into the character and intensity of religious faith form an important basis for study; and the differences between Comte's sociology and Sainte-Beuve's anti-Jesuit utterances are explained from a standpoint of national influences. Nietzsche examines the many phases of atheism and the principal anti-Christian tendencies of all philosophy since Descartes. There is an illuminating exposition of the important stages in religious cruelty and of the motives underlying the various forms of religious sacrifices. Again we run upon the doctrine of eternal recurrence, but here, as elsewhere, it may be regarded, not as a basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical scheme, but as a by-product of his thought. Nietzsche emphasises the necessity of idleness in all religious lives, and shows how the adherence to the religious mood works against the activities, both of mind and of body, which make for the highest efficiency.

A very important phase of Nietzsche's teaching is contained in this criticism of the religious life. The detractors of the Nietzschean doctrine, almost without exception, base their judgments on the assumption that the universal acceptation of his theories would result in social chaos. As I have pointed out before, Nietzsche desired[Pg 181] no such general adoption of his beliefs. In his bitterest diatribes against Christianity, his object was not to shake the faith of the great majority of mankind in their idols. He sought merely to free the strong men from the restrictions of a religion which fitted the needs of only the weaker members of society. He neither hoped nor desired to wean the mass of humanity from Christianity or any similar dogmatic comfort. On the contrary, he denounced those superficial atheists who endeavoured to weaken the foundations of religion. He saw the positive necessity of such religions as a basis for his slave morality, and in the present chapter he exhorts the rulers to preserve the religious faith of the serving classes, and to use it as a means of government-as an instrument in the work of disciplining and educating. In paragraph 61 he says: "The selecting and disciplining influence-destructive as well as creative and fashioning-which can be exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the sort of people placed under its spell and protection." Not only is this an expression of the utilitarian value of religious formulas, but a definite voicing of one of the main factors in his philosophy. His entire system of ethics is built on the complete disseverance of the dominating class and the serving class; and his doctrine of "beyond good and evil" should be considered only as it pertains to the superior man. To apply it to all classes would be to reduce Nietzsche's whole system of ethics to impracticability, and therefore to an absurdity.

Passing from a consideration of the religious mood, Nietzsche enters a broader sphere of ethical research, and endeavours to trace the history and development of morals. He accuses the philosophers of having avoided[Pg 182] the real problem of morality, namely: the testing of the faith and motives which lie beneath moral beliefs. This is the task he sets for himself, and in his chapter, "The Natural History of Morals," he makes an examination of moral origins-an examination which is extended into an exhaustive treatise in "The Genealogy of Morals." However, his dissection here is carried out on a broader and far more general scale than in his previous books, such as "Human, All-Too-Human" and "The Dawn of Day." Heretofore he had confined himself to codes and systems, to acts of morality and immorality, to judgments of conducts. In "Beyond Good and Evil" he treats of moral prejudices as forces working hand in hand with human progress. In addition, there is a definite attitude of constructive thinking here which is absent from his earlier work. He outlines the course to be taken by the men of the future, and points to the results which have accrued from the moralities of modern nations. He offers the will to power in place of the older "will to belief," and characterises the foundations of acceptance for all moral codes as "fictions" and "premature hypotheses." He defines the racial ideals which have grown up out of moral influences, and, applying them to the needs of the present day, finds them inadequate and dangerous. The conclusion to which his observations and analyses point is that, unless the rulers of the race take a stand beyond the outposts of good and evil and govern on a basis of expediency divorced from all moral influences, the individual is in constant danger of being lowered to the level of the gregarious conscience.

In the chapter, "We Scholars," Nietzsche continues his definition of the philosopher, whom he holds to be the highest type of man. Besides being a mere description[Pg 183] of the intellectual traits of this "free spirit," the chapter is also an exposition of the shortcomings of those modern men who pose as philosophers. In the path of these new thinkers Nietzsche sees many difficulties both from within and from without, and points out methods whereby these obstacles may be overcome. Also the man of science and the man of genius are analyzed and weighed as to their relative importance in the community. In fact, we have here Nietzsche's most concise and complete definition of the individuals upon whom rests the burden of progress. These valuations of the intellectual leaders are important to the student, for by one's understanding them, along with the reasons for such valuations, a comprehension of the ensuing volumes is facilitated. Nietzsche hereby establishes the qualities of those entitled to the master-morality code; and, by thus drawing the line of demarcation in humanity, he defines at the same time that class whose constitutions and predispositions demand the slave-morality. In addition, he affixes, according to his philosophical formula, a scale of values to such mental attributes as objectivity, power to will, scepticism, positivity and constraint.

Important material touching on many of the fundamental points of Nietzsche's philosophy is embodied in the chapter entitled "Our Virtues." The more general inquiries into conduct and the research along the broader lines of ethics are supplanted by inquiries into specific moral attributes. The current virtues are questioned, and their historical significance is determined. The value of such virtues is tested in their relation to different types of men. Sacrifice, sympathy, brotherly love, service, loyalty, altruism and similar ideals of conduct are examined, and the results of such virtues are shown to be[Pg 184] incompatible with the demands of modern social intercourse. Nietzsche poses against these virtues the sterner and more rigid forms of conduct, pointing out wherein they meet with the present requirements of human progress. The chapter is a preparation for his establishment of a new morality and also an explanation of the dual ethical code which is one of the main pillars in his philosophical structure. Before presenting his precept of a dual morality, Nietzsche endeavours to determine woman's place in the political and social scheme, and points out the necessity, not only of individual feminine functioning, but of the preservation of a distinct polarity in sexual relationship.

In the final chapter many of Nietzsche's philosophical ideas take definite shape. The doctrine of slave-morality and master-morality, prepared for and partially defined in preceding chapters, is here directly set forth, and those virtues and attitudes which constitute the "nobility" of the master class are specifically defined. Nietzsche designates the duty of his aristocracy, and segregates the human attributes according to the rank of individuals. The Dionysian ideal, which underlies all the books that follow "Beyond Good and Evil," receives its first direct exposition and application. The hardier human traits such as egotism, cruelty, arrogance, retaliation and appropriation are given ascendency over the softer virtues such as sympathy, charity, forgiveness, loyalty and humility, and are pronounced necessary constituents in the moral code of a natural aristocracy. At this point is begun the transvaluation of values which was to have been completed in "The Will to Power." The student should read carefully this chapter, for it is an introduction as well as an explanation[Pg 185] for what follows, and was written with that purpose in view.

EXCERPTS FROM "BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL"

To recognise untruth as a condition of life: that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. 9

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. 20

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is the privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being obliged to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. 43

The virtues of the common man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a philosopher; it might be possible for a highly developed man, supposing him to degenerate and go to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, for the sake of which he would have to be honoured as a saint in the lower world into which he had sunk. 44

Books for the general reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour of paltry people clings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if one wishes to breathe pure air. 44

"Will" can naturally only operate on "will"-and[Pg 186] not on "matter" (not on "nerves," for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever "effects" are recognised-and whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power operates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will. Granted, finally, that we succeed in explaining our entire instinctive life as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of will-namely, the Will to Power, as my thesis puts it; granted that all organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and that the solution of the problem of generation and nutrition-it is one problem-could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the right to define all active force unequivocally as Will to Power. The world seen from within, the world defined and designated according to its "intelligible character"-it would simply be "Will to Power," and nothing else. 52

Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy and to make bad are just as little counter-arguments. A thing could be true, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full knowledge of it-so that the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure-or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified. 53-54

Everything that is profound loves the mask; the profoundest things have a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the contrary only be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? 54-55

One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree[Pg 187] with many people. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbour takes it into his mouth. And how could there be a "common good." The expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of small value. In the end things must be as they are and have always been-the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare. 57-58

In every country of Europe, and the same in America, there is at present ... a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits.... Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the levellers, these wrongly named "free spirits"-as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of the democratic taste and its "modern ideas"; all of them men without solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied; only, they are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost all human misery and failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed-a notion which happily inverts the truth entirely. 53-59

We believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and revelry of every kind,-that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human species as its opposite.... 59

The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice: the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit; it is at the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. 65

The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation[Pg 188] and utter voluntary privation.-Why did they thus bow? They divined in him-and as it were behind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearance-the superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation; the strength and love of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured something in themselves when they honoured the saint.... The mighty ones of the world learned to have a new fear before him, they divined a new power, a strange, still unconquered enemy:-it was the "Will to Power" which obliged them to halt before the saint. 70-71

Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting and suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems to an old man.... 75

To love mankind for God's sake-this has so far been the noblest and remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. 79

For those who are strong and independent, destined and trained to command, in whom the judgment and skill of a ruling race is incorporated, religion is an additional means for overcoming, betraying and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter, their inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. 80

Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of educating and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary baseness and work itself upward to future supremacy. And finally, to ordinary men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and general utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, ennoblement of obedience, additional[Pg 189] social happiness and sympathy, with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all the semi-animal poverty of their souls. 81

"Knowledge for its own sake"-that is the last snare laid by morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. 85

He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. 86

Sympathy for all-would be harshness and tyranny for thee, my good neighbour! 88

To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end of which one is ashamed also of one's morality. 89

A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalisation of God. 90

Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents the Christians of to-day-burning us. 91

There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. 91

The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and maligns it. 91

The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to rebaptise our badness as the best in us. 92

It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn author-and that he did not learn it better. 93 Even concubinage has been corrupted-by marriage. 93

A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great men-Yes, and then to get round them. 94

From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all evidence of truth. 95

Our vanity would like what we do best to pass[Pg 190] precisely for what is most difficult to us.-Concerning the origin of many systems of morals. 96

When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is "the barren animal." 96

That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered good-the atavism of an old ideal. 97

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. 98

Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology. 98

The Jews--a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as they themselves say and believe-the Jews performed the miracle of the inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a new and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets fused into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent," "sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with them that the slave-insurrection in morals commences. 117

The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, C?sar Borgia) are fundamentally misunderstood, "nature" is misunderstood, so long as one seeks a "morbidness" in the constitution of these healthiest of all tropical monsters and growths.... 118

[Pg 191]

All the systems of morals which address themselves to individuals with a view to their "happiness," as it is called-what else are they but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of danger from themselves in which the individuals live; recipes for their passions, their good and bad propensities in so far as such have the Will to Power and would like to play the master; small and great expediencies and elaborations, permeated with the musty odour of old family medicines and old-wife wisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in their form-because they address themselves to "all," because they generalise where generalisation is not authorised; all of them speaking unconditionally, and taking themselves unconditionally; all of them flavoured not merely with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and sometimes even seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to smell dangerously, especially of "the other world." 118-119

In view ... of the fact that obedience has been most practised and fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that, generally speaking, the need thereof is now innate in every one, as a kind of formal conscience. ... 120

The history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its worthiest individuals and periods. 121

As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively in what seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can be no "morality of love to one's neighbour." 123

"Love of our neighbour," is always a secondary matter,[Pg 192] partly conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to our fear of our neighbour. 123

Everything that elevates the individual above the herd, and is a source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called evil; the tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalising disposition, the mediocrity of desires, attains to moral distinction and honour. 125

The democratic movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. 127

We, who regard the democratic movement, not only as a degenerating form of political organisation, but as equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involving his mediocrising and depreciation: where have we to fix our hopes? In new philosophers-there is no other alternative: in minds strong and original enough to initiate opposite estimates of value, to transvalue and invert "eternal valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future, who in the present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which will compel millenniums to take new paths. To teach men the future of humanity as his will, as depending on human will, and to make preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of "history" (the folly of the "greatest number" is only its last form)-for that purpose a new type of philosophers and commanders will some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and dwarfed. 128-129

The universal degeneracy of mankind to the level of the "man of the future"-as idealised by the socialistic[Pg 193] fools and shallow-pates-this degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely gregarious animal (or as they call it, to a man of "free society"), this brutalising of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is undoubtedly possible! He who has thought out this possibility to its ultimate conclusion knows another loathing unknown to the rest of mankind-and perhaps also a new mission!130-131

Supposing ... that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be sceptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only be designated thereby-and not they themselves. With equal right they might call themselves critics; and assuredly they will be men of experiments.... They will be sterner (and perhaps not always towards themselves only) ... they will not deal with the "truth" in order that it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them-they will rather have little faith in "truth" bringing with it such revels for the feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one says in their presence: "that thought elevates me, why should it not be true?" or; "that artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?" Perhaps they will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus rapturous, idealistic, feminine and hermaphroditic; and if any one could look into their inmost heart, he would not easily find therein the intention to reconcile "Christian sentiments" with "antique taste," or even with "modern parliamentarism" (the kind of reconciliation necessarily found even amongst philosophers in our very uncertain and consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters,[Pg 194] will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of the future; they may even make a display thereof as their special adornment-nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on that account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that "philosophy itself is criticism and critical science-and nothing else whatever!" 149-151

The real philosophers ... are commanders and law-givers; they say: "Thus shall it be." They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past-they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is creating, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is-Will to Tower. ... 152

At present ... when throughout Europe the herding animal alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of right" can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong: I mean to say into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness-at present it belongs to the conception of "greatness" to be noble, to wish to be apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live by personal initiative; and the philosopher will betray something of his own ideal when he asserts: "He shall be the greatest who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, and of superabundance of will;[Pg 195] precisely this shall be called greatness: as diversified as can be entire, as ample as can be full." 154-155

Morality as attitude is opposed to our taste nowadays. This is also an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste.... 161

The practice of judging and condemning morally is the favourite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so.... 162

Whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained something for it-perhaps something from himself for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself "more." 164

Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays ... let the psychologist have his ears open: through all the vanity, through all the noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of self-contempt. 165

We are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the grand style, for the most spiritual festival-laughter and arrogance, for the transcendental height of supreme folly and Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps we are still discovering the domain of our invention just here, the domain where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of the world's history and as God's Merry-Andrews,-perhaps, though nothing else of the present have a future, our laughter itself may have a future! 168

The discipline of suffering, of great suffering-know ye not that it is only this discipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto? 171

It is desirable that as few people as possible should[Pg 196] reflect upon morals, and consequently it is very desirable that morals should not some day become interesting! 174

Not one of those ponderous, conscience-stricken herding-animals (who undertake to advocate the cause of egoism as conducive to the general welfare) wants to have any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the "general welfare" is no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a nostrum,-that what is fair to one may not at all be fair to another, that the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to higher men, in short, that there is a distinction of rank between man and man, and consequently between morality and morality. 175

That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty. 177

Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair, men's gift-we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end, in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have considerable doubt as to whether woman really desires enlightenment about herself-and can desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a new ornament for herself-I believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally feminine?-why, then, she wishes to make herself feared; perhaps she thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not want truth-what does woman care for truth. From the very first nothing is more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth-her great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. 183

[Pg 197]

It betrays corruption of the instincts-apart from the fact that it betrays bad taste-when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de Sta?l, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby in favour of "woman as she is." Among men, these are the three comical women as they are-nothing more-and just the best involuntary counter-arguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy. 184

Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is managed. Woman does not understand what food means, and she insists on being cook. If woman had been a thinking creature, she should certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession of the healing art. Through bad female cooks-through the entire lack of reason in the kitchen-the development of mankind has been longest retarded and most interfered with, 184-185

To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations: that is a typical sign of shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at this dangerous spot-shallow in instinct-may generally be regarded as suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered: he will probably prove too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as present, and will be unable to descend into any of the depths. On the other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and harshness, and easily[Pg 198] confounded with them, can only think of woman as Orientals do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her mission therein.... 186-187

The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men as at present-this belongs to the tendency and fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old age-what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling.... 187

Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes "progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises itself with terrible obviousness: woman retrogrades. Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has declined in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the "emancipation of woman," in so far as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly instincts. There is stupidity in this movement, an almost masculine stupidity, of which a well-reared woman-who is always a sensible woman-might be heartily ashamed. 187-188

Every elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society-and so will it always[Pg 199] be-a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. 223

The essential thing ... in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the significance and highest justification thereof-that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, for its sake, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is not allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher existence. ... 225

Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.... 226

People now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which "the exploiting character" is to be absent:-that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society; it belongs to the nature of the living being as a primary organic function; it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life. 226

In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together and[Pg 200] connected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light. There is master-morality and slave-morality;-I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilisations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities; but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed, sometimes their close juxtaposition-even in the same man, within one soul. 227

The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What is injurious to me is injurious in itself"; he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is a creator of values. He honours whatever he recognises in himself: such morality is self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the conscientiousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:-the noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not-or scarcely-out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the superabundance of power. The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard. 229

A morality of the ruling class ... is ... especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or "as the heart desires," and in any case "beyond good and evil": it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments[Pg 201] can have a place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge-both only within the circle of equals,-artfulness in retaliation, raffinement of the idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies as outlets for the emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance-in fact, in order to be a good friend: all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality. 229-230

Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and "evil":-power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the "good" man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade of depreciation-it may be slight and well-intentioned-at last attaches itself even to the "good" man of this morality; because, according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be the safe man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid, un bonhomme. Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendency, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words "good" and "stupid."-A last fundamental difference: the desire for freedom, the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating. 231

[Pg 202]

A species originates, and a type becomes established and strong in the long struggle with essentially constant unfavourable conditions. On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species which receive superabundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in monstrous vices). 234

I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as "we," other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. 240

Woman would like to believe that love can do everything-it is the superstition peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love is-he finds that it rather destroys than saves! 246

Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, among our duties. 249

A man strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindrance-or as a temporary resting-place. 249

If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one does not agree.... 254

All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometimes-"commonplace." 254-255

The noble soul has reverence for itself. 256

A man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution,[Pg 203] remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a master by nature-when such a man has sympathy, well, that sympathy has value! 259

I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their laughing-up to those who are capable of golden laughter. 260