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893.
To hate mediocrity is unworthy of a philosopher: it is almost a note of interrogation to his "right to philosophy." It is precisely because he is the exception that he must protect the rule and ingratiate all mediocre people.
894.
What I combat: that an exceptional form should make war upon the rule—instead of understanding that the continued existence of the rule is the first condition of the value of the exception. For instance, there are women who, instead of considering their abnormal thirst for knowledge as a distinction, would fain dislocate the whole status of womanhood.
895.
The increase of strength despite the temporary ruin of the individual:—
A new level must be established;
We must have a method of storing up forces for the maintenance of small performances, in opposition to economic waste;
Destructive nature must for once be reduced to an instrument of this economy of the future;
The weak must be maintained, because there is an enormous mass of finicking work to be done;
The weak and the suffering must be upheld in their belief that existence is still possible;
Solidarity must be implanted as an instinct opposed to the instinct of fear and servility;
War must be made upon accident, even upon the accident of "the great man."
896.
War upon great men justified on economic grounds. Great men are dangerous; they are accidents, exceptions, tempests, which are strong enough to question things which it has taken time to build and establish. Explosive material must not only be discharged harmlessly, but, if possible, its discharge must be prevented altogether, this is the fundamental instinct of all civilised society.
897.
He who thinks over the question of how the type man may be elevated to its highest glory and power, will realise from the start that he must place himself beyond morality; for morality was directed in its essentials at the opposite goal—that is to say, its aim was to arrest and to annihilate that glorious development wherever it was in process of accomplishment. For, as a matter of fact, development of that sort implies that such an enormous number of men must be subservient to it, that a counter-movement is only too natural: the weaker, more delicate, more mediocre existences, find it necessary to take up sides against that glory[Pg 327] of life and power; and for that purpose they must get a new valuation of themselves by means of which they are able to condemn, and if possible to destroy, life in this high degree of plenitude. Morality is therefore essentially the expression of hostility to life, in so far as it would overcome vital types.
898.
The strong of the future.—To what extent necessity on the one hand and accident on the other have attained to conditions from which a stronger species may be reared: this we are now able to understand and to bring about consciously; we can now create those conditions under which such an elevation is possible.
Hitherto education has always aimed at the utility of society: not the greatest possible utility for the future, but the utility of the society actually extant. What people required were "instruments" for this purpose. Provided the wealth of forces were greater, it would be possible to think of a draft being made upon them, the aim of which would not be the utility of society, but some future utility.
The more people grasped to what extent the present form of society was in such a state of transition as sooner or later to be no longer able to exist for its own sake, but only as a means in the hands of a stronger race, the more this task would have to be brought forward.
The increasing belittlement of man is precisely the impelling power which leads one to think of[Pg 328] the cultivation of a stronger race: a race which would have a surplus precisely there where the dwarfed species was weak and growing weaker (will, responsibility, self-reliance, the ability to postulate aims for one's self).
The means would be those which history teaches: isolation by means of preservative interests which would be the reverse of those generally accepted; exercise in transvalued valuations; distance as pathos; a clean conscience in what to-day is most despised and most prohibited.
The levelling of the mankind of Europe is the great process which should not be arrested; it should even be accelerated. The necessity of cleaving gulfs, of distance, of the order of rank, is therefore imperative; but not the necessity of retarding the process above mentioned.
This levelled-down species requires justification as soon as it is attained: its justification is that it exists for the service of a higher and sovereign race which stands upon it and can only be elevated upon its shoulders to the task which it is destined to perform. Not only a ruling race whose task would be consummated in ruling alone: but a race with vital spheres of its own, with an overflow of energy for beauty, bravery, culture, and manners, even for the most abstract thought; a yea-saying race which would be able to allow itself every kind of great luxury—strong enough to be able to dispense with the tyranny of the imperatives of virtue, rich enough to be in no need of economy or pedantry; beyond good and evil; a forcing-house for rare and exceptional plants.
899.
Our psychologists, whose glance dwells involuntarily upon the symptoms of decadence, lead us to mistrust intellect ever more and more. People persist in seeing only the weakening, pampering, and sickening effects of intellect, but there are now going to appear:—
| New barbarians | Cynics | The union of intellectual |
| Experimentalists | superiority with well-being | |
| Conquerors | and an overflow of strength. |
900.
I point to something new: certainly for such a democratic community there is a danger of barbarians; but these are sought only down below. There is also another kind of barbarians who come from the heights: a kind of conquering and ruling natures, which are in search of material that they can mould. Prometheus was a barbarian of this stamp.
901.
Principal standpoint: one should not suppose the mission of a higher species to be the leading of inferior men (as Comte does, for instance); but the inferior should be regarded as the foundation upon which a higher species may live their higher life—upon which alone they can stand.[Pg 330] The conditions under which a strong, noble species maintains itself (in the matter of intellectual discipline) are precisely the reverse of those under which the industrial masses—the tea-grocers la Spencer—subsist. Those qualities which are within the grasp only of the strongest and most terrible natures, and which make their existence possible leisure, adventure, disbelief, and even dissipation—would necessarily ruin mediocre natures —and does do so—when they possess them. In the case of the latter industry, regularity, moderation, and strong "conviction" are in their proper place—in short, all "gregarious virtues": under their influence these mediocre men become perfect.
