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679.
Judged from the standpoint of the theory of descent, individuation shows the continuous breaking[Pg 153] up of one into two, and the equally continuous annihilation of individuals for the sake of a few individuals, which evolution bears onwards; the greater mass always perishes ("the body").
The fundamental phenomena: innumerable individuals are sacrificed for the sake of a few, in order to make the few possible.—One must not allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same with peoples and races: they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and valuable individuals, who continue the great process.
680.
I am opposed to the theory that the individual studies the interests of the species, or of posterity, at the cost of his own advantage: all this is only apparent.
The excessive importance which he attaches to the sexual instinct is not the result of the latter's importance to the species, for procreation is the actual performance of the individual, it is his greatest interest, and therefore it is his highest expression of power (not judged from the standpoint of consciousness, but from the very centre of the individual).
681.
The fundamental errors of the biologists who have lived hitherto: it is not a matter of the species, but of rearing stronger individuals (the many are only a means).
Life is not the continuous adjustment of internal[Pg 154] relations to external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" phenomena.
These biologists continue the moral valuations ("the absolutely higher worth of Altruism," the antagonism towards the lust of dominion, towards war, towards all that which is not useful, and towards all order of rank and of class).
682.
In natural science, the moral depreciation of the ego still goes hand in hand with the overestimation of the species. But the species is quite as illusory as the ego: a false distinction has been made. The ego is a hundred times more than a mere unit in a chain of creatures; it is the chain itself, in every possible respect, and the species is merely an abstraction suggested by the multiplicity and partial similarity of these chains. That the individual is sacrificed to the species, as people often say he is, is not a fact at all: it is rather only an example of false interpretation.
683.
The formula of the "progress"-superstition according to a famous physiologist of the cerebral regions:—
"L'animal ne fait jamais de progrs comme espce. L'homme seul fait de progrs comme espce."
No.
684.
Anti-Darwin.—The domestication of man: what definite value can it have, or has domestication in itself a definite value?—There are reasons for denying the latter proposition.
Darwin's school of thought certainly goes to great pains to convince us of the reverse: it would fain prove that the influence of domestication may be profound and fundamental. For the time being, we stand firmly as we did before; up to the present no results save very superficial modification or degeneration have been shown to follow upon domestication. And everything that escapes from the hand and discipline of man, returns almost immediately to its original natural condition. The type remains constant, man cannot "dnaturer la nature."
Biologists reckon upon the struggle for existence, the death of the weaker creature and the survival of the most robust, most gifted combatant; on that account they imagine a continuous increase in the perfection of all creatures. We, on the contrary, have convinced ourselves of the fact, that in the struggle for existence, accident serves the cause of the weak quite as much as that of the strong; that craftiness often supplements strength with advantage; that the prolificness of a species is related in a remarkable manner to that species chances of destruction....
Natural Selection is also credited with the power of slowly effecting unlimited metamorphoses: it is believed that every advantage is[Pg 156] transmitted by heredity, and strengthened in the course of generations (when heredity is known to be so capricious that ...); the happy adaptations of certain creatures to very special conditions of life, are regarded as the result of surrounding influences. Nowhere, however, are examples of unconscious selection to be found (absolutely nowhere). The most different individuals associate one with the other; the extremes become lost in the mass. Each vies with the other to maintain his kind; those creatures whose appearance shields them from certain dangers, do not alter this appearance when they are in an environment quite devoid of danger.... If they live in places where their coats or their hides do not conceal them, they do not adapt themselves to their surroundings in any way.
The selection of the most beautiful has been so exaggerated, that it greatly exceeds the instincts for beauty in our own race! As a matter of fact, the most beautiful creature often couples with the most debased, and the largest with the smallest. We almost always see males and females taking advantage of their first chance meeting, and manifesting no taste or selectiveness at all.—Modification through climate and nourishment—but as a matter of fact unimportant.
There are no intermediate forms.—
The growing evolution of creatures is assumed. All grounds for this assumption are entirely lacking. Every type has its limitations: beyond these evolution cannot carry it.
My general point of view. First proposition: Man as a species is not progressing. Higher specimens are indeed attained; but they do not survive. The general level of the species is not raised.
Second proposition: Man as a species does not represent any sort of progress compared with any other animal. The whole of the animal and plant world does not develop from the lower to the higher.... but all simultaneously, haphazardly, confusedly, and at variance. The richest and most complex forms—and the term "higher type" means no more than this—perish more easily: only the lowest succeed in maintaining their apparent imperishableness. The former are seldom attained, and maintain their superior position with difficulty, the latter are compensated by great fruitfulness.—In the human race, also, the superior specimens, the happy cases of evolution, are the first to perish amid the fluctuations of chances for and against them. They are exposed to every form of decadence: they are extreme, and, on that account alone, already decadents.... The short duration of beauty, of genius, of the Csar, is sui generis: such things are not hereditary. The type is inherited, there is nothing extreme or particularly "happy" about a type——It is not a case of a particular fate, or of the "evil will" of Nature, but merely of the concept "superior type": the higher type is an example of an incomparably greater degree of complexity a greater sum of co-ordinated elements: but on this account disintegration becomes a thousand times more[Pg 158] threatening. "Genius" is the sublimest machine in existence—hence it is the most fragile.
