779. The quantitative estimate of aims and its in fluence upon the valuing standpoint: the great and the small criminal. The greatness or small- ness of the aims will determine whether the doer feels respect for himself with it all, or whether he feels pusillanimous and miserable. The degree of intellectuality manifested in the means employed may likewise influence our valua tion. How differently the philosophical innovator, experimenter, and man of violence stands out against robbers, barbarians, adventurers! There is a semblance of disinterestedness in the former. Finally, noble manners, bearing, courage, self- confidence, how they alter the value of that which is attained by means of them! * Concerning the optics of valuation: The influence of the greatness or smallness of the aims. The influence of the intellectuality of the means. The influence of the behaviour in action. The influence of success or failure. The influence of opposing forces and their value. The influence of that which is permitted and that which is forbidden.
780. The tricks by means of which actions, measures, and passions are legitimised, which from an in dividual standpoint are no longer good form or even in good taste: Art, which allows us to enter such strange worlds, makes them tasteful to us. Historians prove its justification and reason; travels, exoticism, psychology, penal codes, the lunatic asylum, the criminal, sociology. Impersonality (so that as media of a collective whole we allow ourselves these passions and actions the Bar, juries, the bourgeois, the soldier, the minister, the prince, society, " critics ") makes us feel that we are sacrificing something.
781. Preoccupations concerning one s self and one s eternal salvation are not expressive either of a rich or of a self-confident nature, for the latter lets all questions of eternal bliss go to the devil, it is not interested in such matters of happiness; it is all power, deeds, desires; it imposes itself upon things; it even violates things. The Christian is a romantic hypochondriac who does not stand firmly on his legs. Whenever hedonistic views come to the front, one can always presuppose the existence of pain and a certain ill-constitutedness.
782. " The growing autonomy of the individual " Parisian philosophers like M. Fouillee talk of such things: they would do well to study the race moutonniere for a moment; for they belong to it. For Heaven s sake open your eyes, ye sociologists who deal with the future! The individual grew strong under quite opposite conditions: ye describe the extremest weakening and impoverishment of man; ye actually want this weakness and impover ishment, and ye apply the whole lying machinery of the old ideal in order to achieve your end. Ye are so constituted that ye actually regard your gregarious wants as an ideal! Here we are in the presence of an absolute lack of psychological honesty.
783. The two traits which characterise the modern European are apparently antagonistic individual ism and the demand for equal rights: this I am at last beginning to understand. The individual is an extremely vulnerable piece of vanity: this vanity, when it is conscious of its high degree of susceptibility to pain, demands that every one should be made equal; that the individual should only stand inter pares. But in this way a social race is depicted in which, as a matter of fact, gifts and powers are on the whole equally distributed. The pride which would have loneliness and but few appreciators is quite beyond comprehension: really " great " successes are only attained through the masses indeed, we scarcely understand yet that a mob success is in reality only a small success; because pulchrum est paucorum hominum. No morality" will countenance order of rank among men, and the jurists know nothing of a communal conscience. The principle of indi vidualism rejects really great men, and demands the most delicate vision for, and the speediest dis covery of, a talent among people who are almost equal; and inasmuch as every one has some modicum of talent in such late and civilised cul tures (and can, therefore, expect to receive his share of honor), there is a more general buttering-up of modest merits today than there has ever been. This gives the age the appearance of unlimited j justice. Its want of justice is to be found not in its unbounded hatred of tyrants and demagogues, even in the arts; but in its detestation of noble natures who scorn the praise of the many. The demand for equal rights (that is to say, the privi lege of sitting in judgment on everything and everybody) is anti-aristocratic. This age knows just as little concerning the absorption of the individual, of his mergence into a great type of men who do not want to be personalities. It was this that formerly constituted the distinction and the zeal of many lofty natures (the greatest poets among them); or of the desire to be a polls, as in Greece; or of Jesuitism, or of the Prussian Staff Corps, and bureaucracy; or of apprenticeship and a continuation of the tradition of great masters: to all of which things, non-social conditions and the absence of petty vanity are necessary.
784. Individualism is a modest and still unconscious form of will to power; with it a single human unit seems to think it sufficient to free himself from the preponderating power of society (or of the State or Church). He does not set himself up in opposi tion as a personality, but merely as a unit; he represents the rights of all other individuals as against the whole. That is to say, he instinc tively places himself on a level with every other unit: what he combats he does not combat as a person, but as a representative of units against a mass. Socialism is merely an agitatory measure of individualism: it recognises the fact that in order to attain to something, men must organise them selves into a general movement into a " power." But what the Socialist requires is not society as! the object of the individual, but society as a means of making many individuals possible: this is the instinct of Socialists, though they frequently de ceive themselves on this point (apart from this, however, in order to make their kind prevail, they are compelled to deceive others to an enormous, extent). Altruistic moral preaching thus enters into the service of individual egoism, one of the most common frauds of the nineteenth century. Anarchy is also merely an agitatory measure of Socialism; with it the Socialist inspires fear, with fear he begins to fascinate and to terrorise: but what he does above all is to draw all courageous and reckless people to his side, even in the most intellectual spheres. In spite of all this, individualism is the most modest stage of the will to power. When one has reached a certain degree of inde pendence, one always longs for more: separation in proportion to the degree of force; the individual is no longer content to regard himself as equal to everybody, he actually seeks for his peerhz makes himself stand out from others. Individual ism is followed by a development in groups and organs; correlative tendencies join up together and become powerfully active: now there arise between these centres of power, friction, war, a reconnoitring of the forces on either side, reciprocity, under standings, and the regulation of mutual services. Finally, there appears an order of rank. Recapitulation 4 i. The individuals emancipate themselves. 2. They make war, and ultimately agree concerning equal rights (justice is made an end in itself). 3. Once this is reached, the actual differences in degrees of power begin to make themselves felt, and to a greater extent than before (the reason being that on the whole peace is established, and innumerable small centres of power begin to crerte 229 differences which formerly were scarcely notice able). Now the individuals begin to form groups,; these strive after privileges and preponderance,: and war starts afresh in a milder form. People demand freedom only when they have no power. Once poweTTs obtained, a preponder ance thereof is the next thing to be coveted; if this is not achieved (owing to the fact that one is still too weak for it), then "justice" i.e. " equality of power " become the objects of desire.
785. The rectification of the concept " egoism" When one has discovered what an error the " individual " is, and that every single creature represents the whole process of evolution (not alone " inherited," but in "himself"), the individual then acquires an inordinately great importance. The voice of in stinct is quite right here. When this instinct tends to decline, i.e. when the individual begins to seek his worth in his services to others, one may be sure that exhaustion and degeneration have set in. An altruistic attitude of mind, when it is funda mental and free from all hypocrisy, is the instinct of creating a second value for one s self in the ser vice of other egoists. As a rule, however, it is only apparent a circuitous path to the preserva tion of one s own feelings of vitality and worth.
786. The History of Moralisation and Demoralisation. Proposition one. There are no such things as moral actions: they are purely imaginary. Not only is it impossible to demonstrate their exist ence (a fact which Kant and Christianity, for instance, both acknowledged) but they are not even possible. Owing to psychological misunder standing, a man invented an opposite to the instinc tive impulses of life, and believed that a new species of instinct was thereby discovered: aprimum mobile was postulated which does not exist at all. Ac cording to the valuation which gave rise to the antithesis "moral" and "immoral," one should say: There is nothing else on earth but immoral intentions and actions. Proposition two. The whole differentiation, " moral " and " immoral," arises from the assump tion that both moral and immoral actions are the result of a spontaneous will in short, that such a will exists; or in other words, that moral judg ments can only hold good with regard to intuitions and actions that are free. But this whole order of actions and intentions is purely imaginary: the only world to which the moral standard could be applied does not exist at all: there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral action. The psychological error out of which the anti thesis " moral " and " immoral " arose is: " selfless," " unselfish," " self-denying " all unreal and fan tastic. A false dogmatism also clustered around the concept " ego "; it was regarded as atomic, and falsely opposed to a non-ego; it was also liberated from Becoming, and declared to belong to the sphere of Being. The false materialisation of the ego: this (owing to the belief in individual im- v mortality) was made an article of faith under the pressure of religio-moral discipline. According to this artificial liberation of the ego and its trans ference to the realm of the absolute, people thought that they had arrived at an antithesis in values which seemed quite irrefutable the single ego and the vast non-ego. It seemed obvious that the value of the individual ego could only exist in conjunction with the vast non-ego, more particularly in the sense of being subject to it and existing only for its sake. Here, of course, the gregarious instinct determined the direction of thought: nothing is more opposed to this instinct than the sovereignty of the individual. Supposing, however, that the ego be absolute, then its value must lie in self-negation. Thus: (i) the false emancipation of the "in dividual " as an atom; (2) The gregarious self-conceit which abhors the desire to remain an atom, and regards it as hostile. (3) As a result: the overcoming of the individual by changing his aim. (4) At this point there appeared to be actions that were self-effacing: around these actions a whole sphere of antitheses was fancied. (5) It was asked, in what sort of actions does man most strongly assert himself? Around these (sexuality, covetousness, lust for power, cruelty, etc. etc.) hate, contempt, and anathemas were heaped: it was believed that there could be such things as selfless impulses. Everything selfish was condemned, everything unselfish was in demand. (6) And the result was: what had been done? A ban had been placed on the strongest, the most natural, yea, the only genuine impulses; hencefor ward, in order that an action might be praiseworthy, there must be no trace in it of any of those genuine impulses monstrous fraud in psychology. Every kind of " self-satisfaction " had to be remodelled and made possible by means of misunderstanding and adjusting one s self sub specie boni. Conversely: that species which founcTTts advantage in depriving mankind of its self-satisfaction, the representatives of the gregarious instincts, e.g. the priests and the philosophers, were sufficiently crafty and psycho logically astute to show how selfishness ruled every where. The Christian conclusion from this was: " Everything is sin, even our virtues. Man is utterly undesirable. Selfless actions are impos sible." Original sin. In short, once man had opposed his instincts to a purely imaginary world of the good, he concluded by despising himself as incapable of performing " good " actions. N.B. In this way Christianity represents a step forward in the sharpening of psychological insight: La Rochefoucauld and Pascal. It perceived the essential equality of human actions, and the equality of their values as a whole (all immoral). Now the first serious object was to rear men in whom self-seeking impulses were extinguished: priests, saints. And if people doubted that perfec tion was possible, they did not doubt what perfection was. The psychology of the saint and of the priest and of the "good" man, must naturally have seemed purely phantasmagoricaJ, The real motive of all action rlaci been declared bad: therefore, in order to make action still possible, deeds had to be prescribed which, though not possible, had to be declared possible and sanctified. They now honored and idealised things with as much falsity as they had previously slandered them. Inveighing against the instincts of life came to be regarded as holy and estimable. The priestly ideal was: absolute chastity, absolute obedience, absolute poverty! The lay ideal: alms, pity, self- sacrifice, renunciation of the beautiful, of reason, and of sensuality, and a dark frown for all the strong qualities that existed. * An advance is made: the slandered instincts attempt to re-establish their rights (e.g. Luther s Reformation, the coarsest form of moral falsehood under the cover of " Evangelical freedom "), they are rechristened with holy names. The calumniated instincts try to demonstrate that they are necessary in order that the virtuous instincts may be possible. faut vivre, afin de vivre pour autrui: egoism as a means to an end.* * Spencer s conclusion m the Data of Ethics. TR. But people go still further: they try to grant both the egoistic and altruistic impulses the right to exist equal rights for both from the utili tarian standpoint. People go further: they see greater utility in placing the egoistic rights before the altruistic greater utility in the sense of more happiness for the majority, or of the elevation of mankind, etc. etc. Thus the rights of egoism begin to preponderate, but under the cloak of an extremely altruistic standpoint the collective utility of humanity. An attempt is made to reconcile the altruistic mode of action with the natural order of things. Altruism is sought in the very roots of life. Altruism and egoism are both based upon the essence of life and nature. The disappearance of the opposition between them is dreamt of as a future possibility. Con tinued adaptation, it is hoped, will merge the two into one. At last it is seen that altruistic actions are merely a species of the egoistic and that the degree to which one loves and spends one s self is a proof of the extent of one s individual power and personality. In short, that the more evil man can be made, the better he is, and that one cannot be the one without the other...At this point the curtain rises which concealed the monstrous fraud of the psychology that has prevailed hitherto. Results. There are only immoral intentions and actions; the so-called moral actions must be shown to be immoral. All emotions are traced to a single will, the will to power, and are called essentially equal. The concept of life: in the apparent antithesis good and evil, degrees of power in the instincts alone are expressed. A temporary order of rank is established according to which certain instincts are either controlled or enlisted in our service. Morality is justified: economically, etc. Against proposition two. Determinism: the attempt to rescue the moral world by transferring it to the unknown. Determinism is only a manner of allowing our selves to conjure our valuations away, once they have lost their place in a world interpreted mechanistically. Determinism must therefore be attacked and undermined at all costs: just as our right to distinguish between an absolute and | phenomenal world should be disputed.
787. It is absolutely necessary to emancipate our selves from motives: otherwise we should not be allowed to attempt to sacrifice ourselves or to neglect ourselves! Only the innocence of becoming gives us the highest courage and the highest freedom.
788. A clean conscience must be restored to the evil man has this been my involuntary endeavor all the time? For I take as the evil man him who is strong (Dostoievsky s belief concerning the convicts in prison should be referred to here).
789. Our new " freedom." What a feeling of relief there is in the thought that we emancipated spirits do not feel ourselves harnessed to any system of teleological aims. Likewise that the concepts reward and punishment have no roots in the essence of existence! Likewise that good and evil actions are not good or evil in themselves, but only from the point of view of the self-pre servative tendencies of certain species of humanity! Likewise that our speculations concerning pleasure and pain are not of cosmic, far less then of meta physical, importance! (That form of pessimism associated with the name of Hartmann, which pledges itself to put even the pam and pleasure of existence into the balance, with its arbitrary con finement in the prison and within the bounds of pre-Copernican thought, would be something not only retrogressive, but degenerate, unless it be merely a bad joke on the part of a " Berliner." *) 790. If one is clear as to the " wherefore " of one s life, then the " how " of it can take care of itself. * " Berliner " The citizens of Berlin are renowned in Germany for their poor jokes. TR. It is already even a sign of disbelief in the where fore and in the purpose and sense of life in fact, it is a sign of a lack of will when the value of pleasure and pain step into the foreground, and hedonistic and pessimistic teaching becomes pre valent; and self-abnegation, resignation, virtue, " objectivity," may, at the very least, be signs that the most important factor is beginning to make its absence felt.
791. Hitherto there has been no German culture. It is no refutation of this assertion to say that there have been great anchorites in Germany (Goethe, for instance); for these had their own culture. But it was precisely around them, as though around mighty, defiant, and isolated rocks, that the remain ing spirit of Germany, as their antithesis, lay that is to say, as a soft, swampy, slippery soil, upon which every step and every footprint of the rest of Europe made an impression and created forms. German culture was a thing devoid of character and of almost unlimited yielding power.
792. Germany, though very rich in clever and well- informed scholars, has for some time been so ex cessively poor in great souls and in mighty minds, that it almost seems to have forgotten what a great soul or a mighty mind is; and today mediocre and even ill-constituted men place themselves in the market square without the suggestion of a con science-prick or a signof embarrassment, and declare themselves great men, reformers, etc. Take the case of Eugen Duhring, for instance, a really clever and well-informed scholar, but a man who betrays with almost every word he says that he has a miser ably small soul, and that he is horribly tormented by narrow envious feelings; moreover, that it is no mighty overflowing, benevolent, and spendthrift spirit that drives him on, but only the spirit of ambition! But to be ambitious in such an age as this is much more unworthy of a philosopher than ever it was: today, when it is the mob that rules, when it is the mob that dispenses the honors.
793. My " future ": a. severe polytechnic education. Conscription; so that as a rule every man of the higher classes should be an officer, whatever else he may be besides.
IV. THE WILL TO POWER IN ART 794. OUR religion, morality, and philosophy are decadent human institutions. The counter-agent: Art.
795. The Artist-philosopher. A higher concept of art. Can man stand at so great a distance from his fellows as to mould them? (Preliminary ex ercises thereto: 1. To become a self- former, an anchorite. 2. To do what artists have done hitherto, i.e. to reach a small degree of perfection in a certain medium.)
796. Art as it appears without the artist, i.e. as a body, an organization (the Prussian Officers Corps, the Order of the Jesuits). To what extent is the artist merely a preliminary stage? The world regarded as a self-generating work of art.
797. The phenomenon, " artist," is the easiest to see through: from it one can look down upon the fundamental instincts of power, of nature, etc.; even of religion and morality. " Play," uselessness as the ideal of him who is overflowing with power, as the ideal of the child. The childishness of God, Trals 798. Apollonian, Dionysian. There are two conditions in which art manifests itself in man even as a force of nature, and disposes of him whether he consent or not: it may be as a constraint to visionary states, or it may be an orgiastic impulse. Both conditions are to be seen in normal life, but they are then somewhat weaker: in dreams and in moments of elation or intoxication.* But the same contrast exists between the dream state and the state of intoxication: both of these states let loose all manner of artistic powers with in us, but each unfetters powers of a different kind. Dreamland gives us the power of vision, of association, of poetry: intoxication gives us the power of grand attitudes, of passion, of song, and of dance. * German: " Rausch." There is no word in English for the German expression " Rausch." When Nietzsche uses it, he means a sort of blend of our two words: intoxication and elation. TR.
799. Sexuality and voluptuousness belong to the Dionysiac intoxication: but neither of them is lacking in the Apollonian state. There is also a difference of tempo between the states...The extreme peace of certain feelings of intoxication (or, more strictly, the slackening of the feeling of time, and the reduction of the feeling of space) is wont to reflect itself in the vision of the most restful attitudes and states of the soul. The classical style essentially represents repose, simplification, foreshortening, and concentration the highest feeling of power is concentrated in the classical type. To react with difficulty: great consciousness: no feeling of strife.
800. The feeling of intoxication is, as a matter of fact, equivalent to a sensation of surplus power: it is strongest in seasons of rut: new organs, new accomplishments, new colors, new forms. Embellishment is an outcome of increased power. Embellishment is merely an expression of a triumphant will, of an increased state of co ordination, of a harmony of all the strong desires, of an infallible and perpendicular equilibrium. Logical and geometrical simplification is the result of an increase of power: conversely, the mere aspect of such a simplification increases the sense of power in the beholder...The zenith of development: the grand style. Ugliness signifies the decadence of a type: contradiction and faulty co-ordination among the in most desires this means a decline in the organising power, or, psychologically speaking, in the "will." The condition of pleasure which is called intoxication is really an exalted feeling of power...Sensations of space and time are altered; inordinate distances are traversed by the eye, and only then become visible; the extension of the vision over greater masses and expanses; the refinement of the organ which apprehends the smallest and most elusive things; divination, the power of understanding at the slightest hint, at the smallest suggestion; intelligent sensitiveness; strength as a feeling of dominion in the muscles, as agility and love of movement, as dance, as levity and quick time; strength as the love of proving strength, as bravado, adventurousness, fearlessness, indifference in regard to life and death...All these elated moments of life stimulate each other; the world of images and of imagination of the one suffices as a suggestion for the other: in this way states finally merge into each other, which might do better to keep apart, e.g. the feeling of religious intoxication and sexual irritability (two very profound feelings, always wonderfully co-ordinated. What is it that pleases almost all pious women, old or young? Answer: a saint with beautiful legs, still young, still in nocent). Cruelty in tragedy and pity (likewise! normally correlated). Spring-time, dancing, music,j all these things are but the display of one sex before the other, as also that " infinite yearning of the heart " peculiar to Faust. * Artists when they are worth anything at all are men of strong propensities (even physically), with surplus energy, powerful animals, sensual; without a certain overheating of the sexual system a man like Raphael is unthinkable...To produce music is also in a sense to produce children; chastity is merely the economy of the artist, and in all creative artists productiveness certainly ceases with sexual potency...Artists should not see things as they are; they should see them fuller, simpler, stronger: to this end, however, a kind of youthfulness, of vernality, a sort of per petual elation, must be peculiar to their lives.
801. The states in which we transfigure things and make them fuller, and rhapsodise about them, until they reflect our own fulness and love of life back upon us: sexuality, intoxication, post-prandial states, spring, triumph over our enemies", scorn, bravado, cruelty, the ecstasy of religious feeling. But three elements above all are active: sexuality, j intoxication, cruelty; all these belong to the oldest festal joys of mankind, they also preponderate in budding artists. Conversely: there are things with which we meet which already show us this transfiguration and fulness, and the animal world s response thereto is a state of excitement in the spheres M where these states of happiness originate. A blending of these very delicate shades of animal ( well-being and desires is the (Esthetic state. Thelatter only manifests itself in those natures which are capable of that spendthrift and overflowing fulness of bodily vigour; the latter is always the primum_ mQhil&* The sober-minded man, the tired man, the exhausted and dried-up man (e.g. the scholar), can have no feeling for artrecause he does not possess the primitive force of art, which is the tyranny of inner riches: he who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either. "Perfection" In these states (more particularly in the case of sexual love) there is an ingenuous betrayal of what the profoundest instinct regards as the highest, the most desirable, the most valuable, the ascending movement of its type; also of the condition towards which it is actually striving. Perfection: the extraordinary expansion of this instinct s feeling of power, its riches, its, necessary overflowing of all banks.
802. Art reminds us of states of physical vigour: it may be the overflow and bursting forth of bloom ing life in the world of pictures and desires; on the other hand, it may be an excitation of the physical functions by means of pictures and desires of exalted life an enhancement of the feeling of life, the latter s stimulant. To what extent can ugliness exercise this power? In so far as it may communicate some thing of the triumphant energy of the artist who has become master of the ugly and the repulsive; or in so far as it gently excites our lust -of cruelty (in some circumstances even the lust of doing harm to ourselves, self-violence, and therewith the feeling of power over ourselves).
803. " Beauty " therefore is, to the artist, something which is above all order of rank, because in beauty contrasts are overcome, the highest sign of power thus manifesting itself in the conquest of opposites; and achieved without a feeling of tension: violence being no longer necessary, everything submitting and obeying so easily, and doing so with good grace; this is what delights the powerful will of the artist.
804. The biological value of beauty and ugliness. That which we feel instinctively opposed to us aesthetically is, according to the longest experience of mankind, felt to be harmful, dangerous, and worthy of suspicion: the sudden utterance of the; aesthetic instinct, e.g. in the case of loathing, im plies an act of judgment. To this extent beauty lies within the general category of the biological values, useful, beneficent, and life - promoting:, thus, a host of stimuli which for ages have been associated with, and remind us of, useful things and conditions, give us the feeling of beauty, i.e. the increase of the feeling of power (not only things, therefore, but the sensations which are associated with such things or their symbols). In this way beauty and ugliness are recognized as determined by our most fundamental self- preservative values. Apart from this, it is nonsense to postulate anything as beautiful or ugly. Ab solute beauty exists just as little as absolute good ness and truth. In a particular case it is a matter of the self-preservative conditions of a certain type of man: thus the gregarious man wilFMvef quite a different feeling for beauty from the exceptional or super-man. It is the optics of things in the foreground which only consider immediate consequences, from which the value beauty (also goodness and truth) arises. All instinctive judgments are short-sighted in regard to the concatenation of consequences: they merely advise what must be done forthwith.
Reason is essentially an obstructing apparatus preventing the immediate response to instinctive judgments: it halts, it calculates, it traces the chain of consequences further. Judgments concerning beauty and ugliness are short-sighted (reason is always opposed to them): but they are convincing in the highest degree; they appeal to our instincts in that quarter where the latter decide most quickly and say yes or no with least hesitation, even before reason can interpose. The most common affirmations of beauty stimulate each other reciprocally; where the aesthetic impulse once begins to work, a whole host of other and foreign perfections crystallise around the " particular form of beauty." It is impossible to remain objective, it is certainly impossible to dispense with the interpreting, bestowing, transfiguring, and poetising power (the latter is a stringing together of affirmations concerning beauty itself). The sight of a beautiful woman...Thus (i) judgment concerning beauty is short sighted; it sees only the immediate consequences. (2) It smothers the object which gives rise to it with a charm that is determined by the associa tion of various judgments concerning beauty, which,