853. Art in the "Birth of Tragedy? I. The conception of the work which lies right in the background of this book, is extra ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the types of pessimism which have ever been known hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap parent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense...A world thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth that is to say, in order to live...That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence. Metaphysics, morality, religion, science, in this book, all these things are regarded merely as different forms of falsehood: by means of them we are led to believe in life. " Life must inspire con fidence ": the task which this imposes upon us is enormous. In order to.solve this problem -msM,. must already be a liar in his heart, but he must above all else be an artist. And he is that. Metaphysics, religion, morality, science, all these things are but the offshoot of his will to art, to falsehood, to a flight from " truth," to a denial of " truth." This ability, this artistic capacity par excellence of man thanks to which he overcomes reality with lies, is a quality which he has in common with all other forms of existence. He himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of nature: how could he help being also a piece of genius in prevarication! The fact that the character of existence is misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest secret motive behind everything relating to virtue, science, piety, and art. To be blind to many things, to see many things falsely, to fancy many things: Oh, how clever man has been in those circumstances in which he believed he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm, " God " are but subtle forms of ultimate gelf-deception; they are but seductions to life r and to the belief in Jife! In those moments when man was deceived, when he had befooled himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies he had! What power he felt! And what artistic triumphs in the feeling of power!...Man had once more become master of " matter," master of truth!...And whenever man rejoices it is always in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power...II. Art and nothing else! Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of life. Art is the only superior counteragent to all will to the denial oTTHeT "It "is "Jar excellence the anti- Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic force. Art is the alleviation of the seeker after know ledge, of him who recognises the terrible and questionable character of existence, and who will recognise it, of the tragic seeker after know- ledge. Art is the alleviation of the man of action, of him who not only sees the terrible and questionable character of existence, but also lives it, will live it, of the tragic and warlike man, the hero. Art is the alleviation of the sufferer, as the way to states in which pain is willed, is trans figured, is deified, where suffering is a form of great ecstasy. III. It is clear that in this book pessimism, or, better still, Nihilism, stands for " truth." But truth is not postulated as the highest measure of value, and still less as the highest power. The will to. appearance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming, and to change r (lo objective" deception), is here re garded as more profound, as more primeval, as" more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality, to appearance: the latter is merely a form of the will to illusion. Happiness is likewise conceived as more primeval than pain: and pain is considered as conditioned, as a consequence of the will to happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to forming, i.e. to creating; in creating, however, de- ( struction is included). The highest state of Yea- saying to existence is conceived as one from which the greatest pain may not be excluded: the tragico- Dionysian state. IV. In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic, namely, in the sense that it teaches something which is stronger than pessimism and which is more " divine " than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem, would be more ready seriously to utter a radical denial of life, an actual denial of action even more than a denial of life, than the author of this book. Except that he knows for he has experienced it, and perhaps experienced little else! that art is of more value than truth. Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversa tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this gospel for artists: " Art is the only task of life, art is the metaphysical activity of life...," FOURTH BOOK. DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.
I. THE ORDER OF RANK i. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ORDER OF RANK 854. IN this age of universal suffrage, in which every body is allowed to sit in judgment upon everything and everybody, I feel compelled to re-establish the order of rank.
855. Quanta of power alone determine rank and dis tinguish rank: nothing else does.
856. The will to power. How must those men be constituted who would undertake this transvalua- tion? The order of rank as the order of power: war and danger are the prerequisites which allow of a rank maintaining its conditions. The pro digious example: man in Nature the weakest and shrewdest creature making himself master, and putting a yoke upon all less intelligent forces. 295 296 857. I distinguish between the type which represents ascending life and that which represents decay, decomposition and weakness. Ought one to suppose that the question of rank between these two types can be at all doubtful?..
858. The modicum of power which you represent decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859. The advantages of standing detached from one s age. Detached from the two movements, that of individualism and that of collectivist morality; for even the first does not recognise the order of rank, and would give one individual the same freedom as another. My thoughts are not concerned with the degree of freedom which should be granted to the one or to the other or to all, but with the degree of power which the one or the other should exercise over his neighbour or over all; and more especially with the question to what extent a sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior type. In plain words: how could one sacrifice the development of mankind in order to assist a higher species than man to come into being.
860. Concerning rank. The terrible consequences of "equality" in the end everybody thinks he has the right to every problem. All order of rank has vanished.
861. It is necessary for higher men to declare war | upon the masses! In all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make them selves masters. Everything that pampers, that softens, and that brings the "people" or "woman" to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage that is to say, the dominion of inferior men. But we must make reprisals, and draw the whole state of affairs (which commenced in Europe with Christianity) to the light of day and to judgment.
862. A teaching is needed which is strong enough to work in a disciplinary manner; it should operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary. The annihilation of declining races. The decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave-tainted valuations. The dominion of the world as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The annihilation of the humbug which is called morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of honesty in this regard: Augustine, Bunyan). The annihilation of universal suffrage that is to say, that system by means of which the lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi duals peoples; constitutional plenitude should be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites; to this end race-combinations should be tried.) The new kind of courage no a priori truths (those who were accustomed to believe in some thing sought such truths!), but free submission to a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance, time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863. The notion, " strong and weak man" resolves itself into this, that in the first place much strength is inherited the man is a total sum: in the other, not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be a starting phenomenon: not yet enough; or a final phenomenon: " no more." The determining point is there where great strength is present, or where a great amount of i strength can be discharged. The mass, as the j sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; it defends. itself against much for which it is too weak, against that for which it has no use; it never creates, it never takes a step forward. This is opposed to the theory which denies the strong individual and would maintain that the " masses do everything." The difference is similar to that which obtains between separated generations: four or even five generations may lie between the masses and him who is the moving spirit it is a chronological difference. The values of the weak are in the van, because the strong have adopted them in order to lead with them.
864. Why the weak triumph. On the whole, the sick and the weak have more sympathy and are more "humane"; the sick and the weak have more intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated, more entertaining more malicious; the sick alone invented malice. *A morbid precocity is often to be observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous people.) Esprit: the property of older races; Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect and money. Anti-Semites another name for " bungled and botched.") The sick and the weak have always had fascina tion on their side; they are more interesting than the healthy: the fool and the saint the two most interesting kinds of men...Closely related thereto is the " genius." The " great adventurers and criminals " and all great men, the most healthy in particular, have always been sick at certain periods of their lives great disturbances of the emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are all accompanied by very profound perturbations. And, as for decadence, every man who does not die prematurely manifests it in almost every respect he therefore knows from experience the instincts which belong to it: for half his life nearly every man is decadent. And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty woman requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also requires a religion of the weak which glorifies weakness, love, and modesty as divine: or, better still, she makes the strong weak she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with decadent types, the priests, for instance, against the " mighty," against! the " strong," against men. Women avail them selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and love: the mother stands as the symbol of convincing altruism. Finally, the increase of civilisation with its necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid elements, v of the neurotic and psychiatric and of the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises, the artist. He is distinct from those who are.criminals as the result of weak wills and of the fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe for the asylum; but he has antennae which grope inquisitively into both spheres: this specific plant of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and, above all, novelist, who designates his particular kind of attitude with the very indefinite word " naturalism."...Lunatics, criminals, and realists * are on the increase: this is the sign of a growing culture plunging forward at headlong speed that is to say, its excrement, its refuse, the rubbish that is shot from it every day, is beginning to acquire more importance, the retrogressive movement keeps pace with the advance. Finally! the social mishmash, which is the result of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights, and of the superstition, the " equality of men." Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction, of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality, which are inherent among those classes of society which have long been suppressed, are beginning to get infused into the blood of all ranks. Two or three generations later, the race can no longer be recognized everything has become mob. And thus there results a collective instinct against selection, against every kind of privilege; and this instinct operates with such power, certainty, hardness, and cruelty that, as a matter of fact, in the end, even the privileged classes have to submit: all those who still wish to hold on to power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and must have the mob on their side the " geniuses " above all The latter become the heralds of those feelings with which the mob can be inspired, the expression of pity, of honor, even for all that suffers, all that is low and despised, and has lived * The German word is " Naturalist," and really means " realist " in a bad sense. TR. under persecution, becomes predominant (types: Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). The rise of the mob signifies once more the rise of old values. In the case of such an extreme movement, both in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil isation, man s ballast is shifted. Those men whose worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is to compensate for the very great danger of such a morbid movement, such men become dawdlers par excellence; they are slow to accept anything, and are tenacious; they are creatures that are relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling and changing of elements. In such circumstances power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre-, mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future, consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases, united). In this way a new antagonist is evolved for exceptional men or in certain cases a new temptation. Provided that they do not adapt themselves to the mob, and stand up for what satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will find it necessary to be " mediocre " and sound. They know: mediocritas is also aurea, it alone has command of money and gold (of all that glitters...)...And, once more, old virtue and the whole superannuated world of ideals in general secures a gifted host of special-pleaders...Result: mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius, it becomes entertaining, and even seductive. * Result. -A high culture can only stand upon a broad basis, upon a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by it, science and even art do their work. Science could not wish for a better state of affairs: in its essence it belongs to a middle-class type of man, among exceptions it is out of place, there is not anything aristocratic and still less anything anarchic in its instincts. The power of the middle classes is then upheld by means of commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of great financiers is opposed to everything extreme on this account the Jews are, for the present, the most conservative power in the threatening and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They can have no use either for revolutions, for social ism, or for militarism: if they would have power, and if they should need it, even over the revolu tionary party, this is only the result of what I have already said, and it in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements they may occasionally require to excite terror by showing how much power is in their hands. But their instinct itself is inveterately conservative and " mediocre."...Wherever power exists, they know how to become mighty; but the application of their power always takes the same direction. The polite term for mediocre, as is well known, is the word" Liberal" * Reflection. It is all nonsense to suppose that this general conquest of values is anti- biological. In order to explain it, we ought to try and show that it is the result of a certain interest of life to maintain the type " man," even by means of this 304 method which leads to the prevalence of the weak and the physiologically botched if things were otherwise, might man not cease to exist? Problem...The enhancement of the type may prove fatal to the maintenance of the species. Why? The experience of history shows that strong races decimate each other mutually, by means of war, lust for power, and venturousness; the strong emotions; wastefulness (strength is no longer capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from excessive tension); their existence is a costly affair in short, they persistently give rise to friction between themselves; periods of profound slackness and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be paid for...The strong are, after all, weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the average weak ones. They are squandering races. " Permanence? in itself, can have no value: that which ought to be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for the species, but a life richer in creations. It would remain to be proved that, even as things are, a richer sum of creations is attained than in the case of the shorter existence; i.e. that man, as a storehouse of power, attains to a much higher degree of dominion over things under the con ditions which have existed hitherto...We are here face to face with a problem of economics.
865. The state of mind which calls itself " idealism," and which will neither allow mediocrity to be 305 mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not make everything uniform! We should have a clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the establishment of a virtue; and that virtue is nothing generally desirable, but a noble piece of madness a beautiful exception, which gives us the privilege of feeling elated...
866. It is necessary to show that a counter-movement is inevitably associated with any increasingly economical consumption of men and mankind, and with an ever more closely involved " machinery " of interests and services. I call this counter- movement the separation of the luxurious surplus of mankind-, by means of it a stronger kind, a higher type, must come to light, which has other conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than the average man. My concept, my metaphor for this type is, as you know, the word " Superman." Along the first road, which can now be completely surveyed, arose adaptation, stultification, higher Chinese culture, modesty inlKenstincts, and satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of man a kind of stationary level of mankind. Ifever we get that inevitable and imminent, general control of the economy of the earth, then man kind can be used as machinery and find its best purpose in the service of this economy as an enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels; then all the dominating and commanding elements I. U 306 will become ever more superfluous; and the whole gains enormous energy, while the individual factors which compose it represent but small modicums of strength and of value. To oppose this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a special ised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed (_,;,i the procreation of the synthetic man who em-bodies everything and justifies it; that man for whom the turning of mankind into a machine is a first condition of existence, for whom the rest of mankind is but soil on which he can devise his higher mode of existence. He is in need of the opposition of the masses, of those who are " levelled down "; he requires that feeling of distance from them; he stands upon them, he lives on them. This higher form of aristocracy is the form of the future. From the moral point of view, the collective machinery above described, that solidarity of all wheels, represents the most extreme example in the exploitation of mankind: but it presupposes the existence of those for whom such an exploitation would have some meaning* Otherwise it would signify, as a matter of fact, merely the general depreciation of the type man, a. retrograde phenomenon on a grand scale. Readers are beginning to see what I am combating namely, economic optimism: as if * This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche s aristoc racy from our present plutocratic and industrial one, for which, at the present moment at any rate, it would be difficult to discover some meaning. TR. the general welfare of everybody must necessarily increase with the growing self-sacrifice of every body.
The very reverse seems to me to be the case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a collective loss; man becomes inferior so that nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose has served. A wherefore? a new wherefore? this is what mankind requires.
867. The recognition of the increase of collective power-, we should calculate to what extent the ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of peoples, is included in this general increase. The transposition of the ballast of a culture. The cost of every vast growth: who bears it? Why must it be enormous at the present time f 868. General aspect of the future European: the latter regarded as the most intelligent servile animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest, inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered, weak of will, a chaos of cosmopolitan pas sions and intelligences. How would it be possible for a stronger race to be bred from him? Such a race as would have a classical taste? The classical taste: this is the will to simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage for psychological nakedness (simplification is the 308 outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing happiness as well as nakedness to become visible is a consequence of the will to the terrible...). In order to fight one s way out of that chaos, and up to this form, a certain disciplinary constraint is necessary: a man should have to choose between either going to the dogs yc prevailing. A ruling race can only arise amid terrible and violent conditions. Problem: where are the barbarians of the twentieth century? Obviously they will only show themselves and consolidate themselves after enormous socialistic crises. They will con sist of those elements which are capable of the greatest hardness towards themselves, and which can guarantee the most enduring will-power.
869. The mightiest and most dangerous passions of man, by means of which he most easily goes to rack and ruin, have been so fundamentally banned that mighty men themselves have either become impossible or else must regard themselves as evil, " harmful and prohibited." The losses are heavy, but up to the present they have been necessary. Now, however, that a whole host of counter-forces has been reared, by means of the temporary suppression of these passions (the passion for dominion, the love of change and deception), their liberation has once more become possible: they will no longer possess their old savagery. We can now allow ourselves this tame sort of bar barism: look at our artists and our statesmen!
870. The root of all evil: that the slave morality of modesty, chastity, selflessness, and absolute obedience should have triumphed. Dominating natures were thus condemned (i) to hypocrisy, (2) to qualms of conscience, creative natures regarded themselves as rebels against frod, un certain and hemmed in by eternal values. The barbarians showed that the ability of keeping within the bounds of moderation was not in the scope of their powers: they feared and slandered the passions and instincts of nature likewise the aspect of the ruling Caesars and castes. On the other hand, there arose the sus picion that all restraint is a form of weakness or of incipient old age and fatigue (thus La Rochefoucauld suspects that "virtue" is only a euphemism in the mouths of those to whom vice no longer affords any pleasure). The capacity for restraint was represented as a matter of hardness, self-control, asceticism, as a fight with the devil, etc. etc. The natural delight of aesthetic natures, in measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of measure, was overlooked and denied, because that which was desired was an anti-eudaemonistic morality. The belief in the pleasure which comes of restraint has been lacking hitherto this pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed! The moderation of weak natures was confounded with the restraint of the strong!In short, the best things have been blasphemed because weak or immoderate swine have thrown a I bad light upon them the best men have remained concealed and have often misunderstood them selves.
871. Vicious and unbridled people: their depressing influence upon the value of the passions. It was the appalling barbarity of morality which was principally responsible in the Middle Ages for the compulsory recourse to a veritable " league of virtue " and this was coupled with an equally appalling exaggeration of all that which consti tutes the value of man. Militant " civilisation " (taming) is in need of all kinds of irons and tortures in order to maintain itself against terrible and beast-of-prey natures. In this case, confusion, although it may have the most nefarious influences, is quite natural: that which men of power and will are able to demand of themselves gives them the standard for what they may also allow themselves. Such natures are the very opposite of the vicious and the un bridled, although under certain circumstances they may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man would be convicted of vice and intemperance. In this respect the concept, " all men are equal before God! does an extraordinary amount of harm; actions and attitudes of mind were for bidden which belonged to the prerogative of the strong alone, just as if they were in themselves unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong men were brought into disrepute by the fact that the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of those who were weakest towards themselves) were established as a standard of valuation. The confusion went so far that precisely the great virtuosos of life (whose self-control presents the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the un bridled) were branded with the most opprobrious names. Even to this day people feel themselves 1 compelled to disarage a Caesar Borgia: it is i simply ludicrous. The "Church has anathematisedGerman Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk or a priest had the right to say a word as to what a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan is sent to hell: this is very naif. Has anybody ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking in heaven?...This is only a hint to the girls, as to where they may best find salvation. If one, think at all logically, and also have a profound insight into that which makes a great man, there can be no doubt at all that the Church has dis-patched all " great men " to Hades its fight isagainst all " greatness in man."
872. The rights which a man arrogates to himself are relative to the duties which he sets himself, and to the tasks which he feels capable of per forming. The great majority of men have no right to life, and are only a misfortune to their higher fellows.
873. The misunderstanding of egoism: on the part of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of 3. 12 conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings of power which make a man wish to overcome things, to force them over to himself, and to lay them on his heart, the power which impels an artist to his material. It often happens also that the active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In ordinary " egoism " it is precisely the " non-ego," the profoundly mediocre creature the member _pf the herd who wishes to maintain himself and when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle, and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For the judgment of the latter is this: " We are the noble It is much more important to maintain us than that cattle! " 874. The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes has been the cause of all the great dis orders in history! Without the Roman Caesars and Roman society, Christianity would never have prevailed. When it occurs to inferior men to doubt whether higher men exist, then the danger is great! It is then that men finally discover that there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed, and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is equal before God: which is the non plus ultra of all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared on earth! For in the end higher men begin to measure themselves according to the standard of virtues upheld by the slaves and discover that they are "proud," etc., and that all their higher qualities should be condemned. When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm, it was then that the paradox arose: " The lowest man is of more value than that one on the throne! " And thus the path was prepared for an image of God which was as remote as possible from the image of the mightiest, God on the Cross!
875. Higher man and gregarious man. When great! men are ivanting, the great of the past are con verted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of religions proves that mankind no longer has any pleasure in man (" nor in woman neither," as in Hamlet s case). Or a host of men are brought together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically. Tyrannising is the distinctive quality of great meq: they make inferior men stupid.
876. Buckle affords the best example of the extent to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is in capable of arriving at a clear idea of the concept, " higher nature." The opinion which he combats so passionately that " great men," individuals, princes, statesmen, geniuses, warriors, are the levers and causes of all great movements, is in stinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant that all that was essential and valuable in such 314 a " higher man," was the fact that he was capable of setting masses in motion; in short, that his sole merit was the effect he produced...But the " higher nature " of the great man resides precisely in being different, in being unable to communicate with others, in the loftiness of his rank not in any sort of effect he may produce even though this be the shattering of both hemi spheres.