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902.
Concerning the ruling types. The shepherd as opposed to the "lord" (the former is only a means to the maintenance of the herd; the latter, the purpose for which the herd exists).
903.
The temporary preponderance of social valuations is both comprehensible and useful; it is a matter of building a foundation upon which a stronger species will ultimately be made possible. The standard of strength: to be able to live under the transvalued valuations, and to desire them for all eternity. State and society regarded as a sub-structure: economic point of view, education conceived as breeding.
904.
A consideration which "free spirits" lack: that the same discipline which makes a strong nature still stronger, and enables it to go in for big undertakings, breaks up and withers the mediocre: doubt —la largeur de cur—experiment—independence.
905.
The hammer. How should men who must value in the opposite way be constituted?—Men who possess all the qualities of the modern soul, but are strong enough to convert them into real health? The means to their task.
906.
The strong man, who is mighty in the instincts of a strong and healthy organisation, digests his deeds just as well as he digests his meals; he even gets over the effects of heavy fare: in the main, however, he is led by an inviolable and severe instinct which prevents his doing anything which goes against his grain, just as he never does anything against his taste.
907.
Can we foresee the favourable circumstances under which creatures of the highest value might arise? It is a thousand times too complicated, and the probabilities of failure are very great: on that account we cannot be inspired by the thought of[Pg 332] striving after them! Scepticism.—To oppose this we can enhance courage, insight, hardness, independence, and the feeling of responsibility; we can also subtilise and learn to forestall the delicacy of the scales, so that favourable accidents may be enlisted on our side.
908.
Before we can even think of acting, an enormous amount of work requires to be done. In the main, however, a cautious exploitation of the present conditions would be our best and most advisable course of action. The actual creation of conditions such as those which occur by accident, presupposes the existence of iron men such as have not yet lived. Our first task must be to make the personal ideal prevail and become realised! He who has understood the nature of man and the origin of mankind's greatest specimens, shudders before man and takes flight from all action: this is the result of inherited valuations!!
My consolation is, that the nature of man is evil, and this guarantees his strength!
909.
The typical forms of self-development, or the eight principal questions:—
1. Do we want to be more multifarious or more simple than we are?
2. Do we want to be happier than we are, or more indifferent to both happiness and unhappiness?
3. Do we want to be more satisfied with ourselves, or more exacting and more inexorable?
4. Do we want to be softer, more yielding, and more human than we are, or more inhuman?
5. Do we want to be more prudent than we are, or more daring?
6. Do we want to attain a goal, or do we want to avoid all goals (like the philosopher, for instance, who scents a boundary, a cul-de-sac, a prison, a piece of foolishness in every goal)?
7. Do we want to become more respected, or more feared, or more despised?
8. Do we want to become tyrants, and seducers, or do we want to become shepherds and gregarious animals?
910.
The type of my disciples.—To such men as concern vie in any way I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities of all kinds. I wish them to be acquainted with profound self-contempt, with the martyrdom of self-distrust, with the misery of the defeated: I have no pity for them; because I wish them to have the only thing which to-day proves whether a man has any value or not, namely, the capacity of sticking to his guns.
911.
The happiness and self-contentedness of the lazzaroni, or the blessedness of "beautiful souls,"[Pg 334] or the consumptive love of Puritan pietists, proves nothing in regard to the order of rank among men. As a great educator one ought inexorably to thrash a race of such blissful creatures into unhappiness. The danger of belittlement and of a slackening of powers follows immediately I am opposed to happiness la Spinoza or la Epicurus, and to all the relaxation of contemplative states. But when virtue is the means to such happiness, well then, one must master even virtue.
912.
I cannot see how any one can make up for having missed going to a good school at the proper time. Such a person does not know himself; he walks through life without ever having learned to walk. His soft muscles betray themselves at every step. Occasionally life itself is merciful enough to make a man recover this lost and severe schooling: by means of periods of sickness, perhaps, which exact the utmost will-power and self-control; or by means of a sudden state of poverty, which threatens his wife and child, and which may force a man to such activity as will restore energy to his slackened tendons, and a tough spirit to his will to life. The most desirable thing of all, however, is, under all circumstances to have severe discipline at the right time, i.e. at that age when it makes us proud that people should expect great things from us. For this is what distinguishes hard schooling, as good schooling, from every other schooling, namely, that a good deal is demanded, that a good[Pg 335] deal is severely exacted; that goodness, nay even excellence itself, is required as if it were normal; that praise is scanty, that leniency is non-existent; that blame is sharp, practical, and without reprieve, and has no regard to talent and antecedents. We are in every way in need of such a school: and this holds good of corporeal as well as of spiritual things; it would be fatal to draw distinctions here! The same discipline makes the soldier and the scholar efficient; and, looked at more closely, there is no true scholar who has not the instincts of a true soldier in his veins. To be able to command and to be able to obey in a proud fashion; to keep one's place in rank and file, and yet to be ready at any moment to lead; to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness. What is it that one learns in a hard school?—to obey and to command.
913.
We should repudiate merit—and do only that which stands above all praise and above all understanding.
914.
The new forms of morality:—
Faithful vows concerning that which one wishes to do or to leave undone; complete and definite abstention from many things. Tests as to whether one is ripe for such discipline.
