Page 59 of 70
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).
[Pg 321] 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 [Pg 322]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 [Pg 323]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] ...
[Pg 324] 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.
[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 [Pg 325]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 [Pg 326]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....
