lords of the earth must, in order to be taught at all, introduce itself as if it were in some way correlated to the prevailing moral law, and must come forward under the cover of the latter s words and forms. But seeing that, to this end, a host of transitionary and de ceptive measures must be discovered, and that the life of a single individual stands for almost nothing in view of the accomplishment of such lengthy tasks and aims, the first thing that must be done is- to rear a new kind of man in whom the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts is guaranteed for many generations. This must be a new kind of ruling species and caste this ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat lengthy and not easily expressed consequences of this thought. The aim should be to prepare a trans- valuation of values for a particularly strong kind of 364 man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and, to this end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in him a whole host of slandered instincts hitherto held in check: whoever meditates about this problem belongs to us, the free spirits certainly not to that kind of " free spirit " which has existed hitherto: for these desired practically the reverse. To this order, it seems to me, belong, above all, the pessimists of Europe, the poets and thinkers of a revolted idealism, in so far as their discontent with existence in general must consistently at least have led them to be dissatisfied with the man of the present; the same applies to certain insati ably ambitious artists who courageously and un conditionally fight against the gregarious animal for the special rights of higher men, and subdue all herd-instincts and precautions of more ex ceptional minds by their seductive art. Thirdly and lastly, we should include in this group all those critics and historians by whom the dis covery of the Old World, which has begun so happily this was the work of the new Columbus, of German intellect will be courageously con tinued (for we still stand in the very first stages of this conquest). For in the Old World, as a matter of fact, a different and more lordly morality ruled than that of today; and the man of antiquity, under the educational ban of his morality, was a stronger and deeper man than the man of today up to the present he has been the, only well - constituted man. The temptation, however, which from antiquity to the present day has always exercised its power on such lucky 365 strokes of Nature, i.e. on strong and enterprising souls, is, even at the present day, the most subtle and most effective of anti-democratic and anti- Christian powers, just as it was in the time of the Renaissance.
958. I am writing for a race of men which does not yet exist: for "the lords of the earth." In Plato's Theages the following passage will be found: "Every one of us would like if possible to be master of mankind; if possible, a God." This attitude of mind must be reinstated in our midst. Englishmen, Americans, and Russians.
959. That primeval forest-plant " Man " always appears where the struggle for power has been waged longest. Great men. Primeval forest creatures, the Romans.
960. From now henceforward there will be such favourable first conditions for greater ruling powers as have never yet been found on earth. And this is by no means the most important point. The establishment has been made possible of in ternational race unions which will set themselves the task of rearing a ruling race, the future " lords of the earth " a new, vast aristocracy based upon the most severe self-discipline, in which the will of philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will 366 be stamped upon thousands of years: a higher species of men which, thanks to their preponder ance of will, knowledge, riches, and influence, will avail themselves of democratic Europe as the most suitable and supple instrument they can have for taking the fate of the earth into their own hands, and working as artists upon man him self. Enough! The time is coming for us to transform all our views on politics.
5. THE GREAT MAN.
5. THE GREAT MAN.
961. I will endeavour to see at which periods in history great men arise. The significance of despotic moralities that have lasted a long time: they strain the bow, provided they do not break it.
962. A great man, a man whom Nature has built up an 5 inverTtetTin a grand style, What is siih a man? First t in his general course of action his consistency is so broad that owinLJtCL_its very breadtn it can be surveyed only with difficulty, and consequently misleads;? he possesses the capacity of extending his will over great stretches of his life, and of despising and rejecting all small things, whatever most beautiful and " divine " things of the world there may be among them., he is colder, harder, less cautious and more reejrom the fear of " public opinioft "; he does n t econ freej possess the VI H-IMHI whuph TC nrnpaHKIf* with nnr nny of those things whidy..are rrlinf f " virtues ot" the hurJ.",. If he is unable to tw7, he walks alone; (he he asks for no compassionate" heart, but servants instruments; in his dealings with men his one aim is to make something out of them. He knows that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he thinks it bad taste to become familiar; and as a rule he is not familiar when people think he is. When he is not talking to his soul, he wears a mask. He would rather lie than tell the truth, because lying requires morejpirit and will. Jbere is1a_ loneliness, wifhin his heart i which neither praise nor blame can reach, because he js his own ju dge from whomjs no appeal.
963. The great man is necessarily a sceptic (I do not mean to say by this that he must appear to be one), provided that greatness consists in this: to will something great, together with the means thereto. Freedom from any kind of conviction is j a factor in his strength of will. And thus it is in keeping with that " enlightened form of des potism " which every great passion exercises. Such a passion enlists intellect in its service; it even has the courage for unholy means; it creates without hesitation; it allows itself con victions, it even uses them, but it never submits to them. The need of faith and of anything un conditionally negative or affirmative is a proof of weakness; all weakness is weakness of will. The man of faith, the believer, is necessarily an inferior species of man. From this it follows that " all freedom of spirit," i.e. instinctive scepticism, is the prerequisite of greatness.
964. The great man is conscious of his power over a people, and of the fact that he coincides temporarily with a people or with a century this magnifying of his self-consciousness as causa and voluntas is misunderstood as "altruism": he feels driven to means of communication: all great men are in ventive in such means. They want to form great communities in their own image; they would fain give multiformity and disorder definite shape; it stimulates them to behold chaos. The misunderstanding of love. There is a slavish love which subordinates itself and gives itself away which idealises and deceives itself; there is a divine species of love which despises and loves at the same time, and which remodels and elevates the thing it loves. The object is to attain that enormous energy of greatness which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which can yet avoid going to ruin at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before.
965. The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples is in my opinion of less importance than the misfortunes which attend great individuals in their development. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men. To think of one s self in moments of great danger, and to draw one s own advantage from the calamities of thou sands in the case of the man who differs very much from the common ruck may be a sign of a great character which is able to master its feelings of pity and justice.
966. In contradistinction to the animal, man has developed such a host of antagonistic instincts and impulses in himself, that he has become master of the earth by means of this synthesis. Moralities are only the expression of local and limited orders of rank in this multifarious world of instincts which prevent man from perishing through their antagonism. Thus a masterful instinct so weakens and subtilises the instinct which opposes it that it becomes an impulse which provides the stimulus for the activity of the principal instinct. The highest man would have the greatest multifariousness in his instincts, and he would possess these in the relatively strongest degree in which he is able to endure them. As a matter of fact, wherever the plant, man, is found strong, mighty instincts are to be found opposing each other (e.g. Shakespeare), but they are subdued.
967. Would one not be justified in reckoning all i great men among the wickedl This is not so easy to demonstrate in the case of individuals. They are so frequently capable of masterly dis simulation that they very often assume the airs and forms of great virtues. Often, too, they seriously reverence virtues, and in such a way as to be passionately hard towards themselves; but as the result of cruelty. Seen from a distance such things are liable to deceive. Many, on the other hand, misunderstand themselves; not infrequently, too, a great mission will call forth great qualities, eg. justice. The essential fact is: the greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is precisely out of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings they suscitate, that the great man arises, for the great man is the broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart.
968. In great men we find the specific qualities ol life in their highest manifestation: injustice, false hood, exploitation. But inasmuch as their effect has always been overwhelming, their essential nature has been most thoroughly misunderstood, and interpreted as goodness. The type of such an interpreter would be Carlyle.* 969. Generally speaking, everything is worth no more and no less than one has paid for it. This of course does not hold good in the case of an isolated individual; the great capacities of the individual have no relation whatsoever to that which he has done, sacrificed, and suffered for them. But if one should examine the previous history of his race one would be sure to find the record of an extraordinary storing up and capitalising of power by means of all kinds of abstinence, struggle, in dustry, and determination. It is because the great man has cost so much, and not because he stands there as a miracle, as a gift from heaven, or as an accident, that he became great: " Heredity " is a false notion. A man s ancestors have always paid the price of what he is.
970. The danger of modesty. To adapt ourselves too early to duties, societies, and daily schemes of work in which accident may have placed us, at a time when neither our powers nor our aim in life has stepped peremptorily into our consciousness; * This not only refers to Heroes and Hero- Worship, but doubtless to Carlyle s prodigious misunderstanding of Goethe a misunderstanding which still requires to be put right by a critic untainted by Puritanism. TR. the premature certainty of conscience and feeling of relief and of sociability which is acquired by this precocious, modest attitude, and which appears to our minds as a deliverance from those inner and outer disturbances of our feelings all this pampers and keeps a man down in the most dangerous fashion imaginable, To learn to respect things which people about us respect, as if we had no standard or right of our own to determine values; the strain of appraising things as others appraise them, counter to the whisperings of our inner taste, which also has a conscience of its own, becomes a terribly subtle kind of constraint: and if in the end no explosion takes place which bursts all the bonds of love and morality at once, then such a spirit becomes withered, dwarfed, feminine, and objective. The reverse of this is bad enough, but still it is better than the foregoing: to suffer from one s environment, from its praise just as much as from its blame; to be wounded by it and to fester inwardly without betraying the fact; to defend one s self involuntarily and suspiciously against its love; to learn to be silent, and perchance to conceal this by talking; to create nooks and safe, lonely hiding-places where one can go and take breath for a moment, or shed tears of sublime comfort until at last one has grown strong enough to say: " What on earth have I to do with you? " and to go one s way alone.
971. Those men who are in themselves destinies, and whose advent is the advent of fate, the whole race of heroic bearers of burdens: oh! how heartily and gladly would they have respite from themselves for once in a while! how they crave after stout hearts and shoulders, that they might free themselves, were it bwt for an hour or two, from that which oppresses them! And how fruitlessly they crave!.. They wait i_they.. observe all that passes before their eyes: no man even cometh nigh to them with a trjJusancItfh part of their suffering and passion; no" manguesseth to wnat end they have waited..."" ATTat,"Tat7THey"arn the first lesson oTlheir life: to wait no longer; and forthwith they learn their second lesson: to be affable, to be modest; and from that time onwards to endure everybody and every kind of thing in short, to endure still a little more than they had endured theretofore.
6. THE HIGHEST MAN AS LAWGIVER OF THE FUTURE.
972. The lawgivers of the future. After having tried for a long time in vain to attach a particular meaning to the word " philosopher," for I found many antagonistic traits, I recognized that we can distinguish between two kinds of philosophers: (1) Those who desire to establish any large system of values (logical or moral); (2) Those who are the lawgivers of such valua tions. The former try to seize upon the world of the present or the past, by embodying or abbreviating the multifarious phenomena by means of signs: their object is to make it possible for us to survey, to reflect upon, to comprehend, and to utilise everything that has happened hitherto they serve the purpose of man by using all past things to the benefit of his future. The second class, however, are commanders; they say: " Thus shall it be! " They alone determine the " whither " and the " wherefore," and that which will be useful and beneficial to man; they have command over the previous work of scientific men, and all knowledge is to them only a means to their creations. This second kind of philosopher seldom appears; and as a matter of fact their situation and their danger is appalling. How often have they not intentionally blindfolded their eyes in order to shut out the sight of the small strip of ground which separates them from the abyss and from utter destruction. Plato, for instance, when he persuaded himself that " the good," as he wanted it, was not Plato s good, but " the good in itself," the eternal treasure which a certain man of the name of Plato had chanced to find on his way! This same will to blindness prevails in a much coarser form in the case of the founders of religion; their " Thou shalt " must on no account sound to their ears like " I will," they only dare to pursue their task as if under the command of God; their legislation of values can only be a burden they can bear if they regard it as " revelation," in this way their conscience is not crushed by the responsi bility. As soon as those two comforting expedients that of Plato and that of Muhammed have been overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve his conscience with the hypothesis " God " or " eternal values," the claim of the lawgiver to de termine new values rises to an awfulness which has j not yet been experienced. Now those elect, onwhom the faint light of such a duty is beginning to dawn, try and see whether they cannot escape it as their greatest danger by means of a timely side-spring: for instance, they try to persuade themselves that their task is already accomplished, or that it defies accomplishment, or that their shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens, or that they are already taken up with burdens closer to hand, or even that this new and remote duty is a temptation and a seduction, drawing them away from all other duties; a disease, a kind of madness. Many, as a matter of fact, do succeed in evading the path appointed to them: throughout the whole of history we can see the traces of such de serters and their guilty consciences. In most cases, however, there comes to such men of destiny that hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity,! in which they are forced to do that which they didj not even "wish to do": and that deed before which in the past they have trembled most, falls easily and unsought from the tree, as an involun-j tary deed, almost as a present.
973. The human horizon. Philosophers may be con ceived as men who make the greatest efforts to discover to what extent man can elevate himself this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man s power can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the instinct of Caesars and of all founders of states, etc., was greater, for it pre occupied itself with the question how far man could be urged forward in development under " favourable circumstances." What they did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable circumstances. The great question: "Where has the plant man grown most magnificently heretofore?" In order to answer this, a comparative study of history is necessary.
974. Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
975. To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists; but if for this purpose any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, states men, have to do, etc.), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness soon vanish. In natures like Caesar and Napoleon we are able to divine something of the nature of " disinterestedness " in their work on their marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the greatest re sponsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin through them. Hitherto the deceptions of inspira tion have almost always been necessary for a man not to lose faith in his own hand, and in his right to his task.
976. The reason why philosophers are mostly failures. Because among the conditions which determine them there are qualities which generally ruin other men: (1) A philosopher must have an enormous multiplicity of qualities; he must be a sort of ab breviation of man and have all man s high and base desires: the danger of the contrast within him, and of the possibility of his loathing him self; (2) He must be inquisitive in an extraordinary number of ways: the danger of versatility; (3) He must be just and honest in the highest sense, but profound both in love and hate (and in injustice); (4) He must not only be a spectator but a law giver: a judge and defendant (in so far as he is an abbreviation of the world); (5) He must be extremely multiform and yet firm and hard. He must be supple.
977. The really regal calling of the philosopher (according to the expression of Alcuin the Anglo- Saxon): " Prava corrigere, et recta corroborare et sancta sublimare" 978. The new philosopher can only arise in conjunc tion with a ruling class, as the highest spiritualisa- tion of the latter. Great politics, the rule of the earth, as a proximate contingency; the total lack of principles necessary thereto.
979. Fundamental concept: the new values must first be created this remains our duty the philosopher must be our lawgiver. New species. (How the greatest species hitherto [for instance, the Greeks] were reared: this kind of accident must now be consciously striven for.)
980. Supposing one thinks of the philosopher as an educator who, looking down from his lonely eleva tion, is powerful enough to draw long chains of generations up to him: then he must be granted the most terrible privileges of a great educator. An educator never says what he himself thinks; but only that which he thinks it is good for those (whom he is educating to hear upon any subject. This dissimulation on his part must not be found out; it is part of his masterliness that people should believe in his honesty, he must be capable of all the means of discipline and education: there are some natures which he will only be able to raise by means of lashing them with his scorn; others who are lazy, irresolute, cowardly, and vain, he will be able to affect only with exaggerated praise. Such a teacher stands beyond good and evil, but nobody must know that he does.
981. We must not make men " better," we must not talk to them about morality in any form as if " morality in itself," or an ideal kind of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must create circumstances in which stronger men are necessary, such as for their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will consequently insist! As they will f need one so badly, they will have it. We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts: greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either.
982. From warriors we must learn: (i) to associate death with those interests for which we are fighting that makes us venerable; (2) we must learn to sacrifice numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently seriously not to spare men; (3) we must practise inexorable discipline, and allow ourselves violence and cunning in war.
983. The education which rears those ruling virtues that allow a man to become master of his benevolence - soul. and his pity: the great disciplinary virtues ("Forgive thine enemies " is mere child s play beside them), and the passions of the creator, must be ele vated to the heights we must cease from carving marble! The exceptional and powerful position of those creatures (compared with that of all princes hitherto): the Roman Caesar with Christ soul.
984. We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. For the former involves independence-, but without intellectual greatness independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create disasters even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." Inferior spirits must obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of greatness.
985. The more lofty philosophical man who is sur rounded by loneliness, not because he wishes to be alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot find his equal: what a number of dangers and torments are reserved for him, precisely at the present time, when we have lost our belief in the order of rank, and consequently no longer know how to under stand or honor this isolation! Formerly the sage almost sanctified himself in the consciences of the mob by going aside in this way; today the anchor ite sees himself as though enveloped in a cloud of gloomy doubt and suspicions. And not alone by the envious and the wretched: in every well-meant act that he experiences he is bound to discover mis understanding, neglect, and superficiality. He knows the crafty tricks of foolish pity which makes these people feel so good and holy when they attempt to save him from his own destiny, by giving him more comfortable situations and more decent and reliable society. Yes, he will even get to admire the unconscious lust of destruction with which all mediocre spirits stand up and oppose him, believing all the while that they have a holy right to do so! For men of such incomprehensible loneliness it is necessary to put a good stretch ol country between them and the officiousness of their fellows: this is part of their prudence. For such a man to maintain himself uppermost today amid the dangerous maelstroms of the age which threaten to draw him under, even cunning and disguise will be necessary. Every attempt he makes to order his life in the present and with the present every time he draws near to these men and their modern desires, he will have to expiate as if it were an actual sin: and withal he may look with wonder at the concealed wisdom of his nature, which after every one of these attempts immediately leads him back to himself by means of illnesses and painful accidents.
986. " Maledetto colui che contrista un spirto immortal! " MANZONI (Conte di Carmagnola, Act II.)
987. The most difficult and the highest form which man can attain is the most seldom successful: thus the history of philosophy reveals a super abundance of bungled and unhappy cases of man hood, and its march is an extremely slow one; whole centuries intervene and suppress what has been achieved: and in this way the connecting- link is always made to fail. It is an appalling history, this history of the highest men, of the sages. What is most often damaged is precisely the recollection of great men, for the semi-successful and botched cases of mankind misunderstand them and overcome them by their " successes." Whenever an " effect " is noticeable, the masses gather in a crowd round it; to hear the inferior and the poor in spirit having their say is a terrible ear-splitting torment for him who knows and trembles at the thought, that the fate of man depends upon the success of its highest types. From the days of my childhood I have reflected upon the sage s conditions of existence, and I will not conceal my happy conviction that in Europe he has once more become possible perhaps only for a short time.
988. These new philosophers begin with a description of a systematic order of rank and difference of value among men, what they desire is, alas precisely the reverse of an assimilation and equalisation of man: they teach estrangement 383 in every sense, they cleave gulfs such as have never yet existed, and they would fain have man become more evil than he ever was. For the present they live concealed and estranged even from each other. For many reasons they will find it necessary to be anchorites and to wear masks they will therefore be of little use in the matter of seeking for their equals. They will live alone, and probably know the torments of all the loneliest forms of loneliness. Should they, however, thanks to any accident, meet each other on the road, I wager that they would not know each other, or that they would deceive each other in a number of ways.
989. " Les philosophies ne sont pas faits pour s aimer. i Les aigles ne volent point en compagnie. II faut laisser cela aux perdrix, aux etourneaux...Planer au-dessus et avoir des griffes, voila le lot des grands ge"nies." GALIANI.
990. I forgot to say that such philosophers are cheerful, and that they like to sit in the abyss of a perfectly clear sky: they are in need of different means for enduring life than other men; for they suffer in a different way (that is to say, just as much from the depth of their contempt of man as from their love of man). The animal L which suffered most on earth discovered for itself -laughter.
991. Concerning the misunderstanding of " cheerfulness" It is a temporary relief from long tension; it is the wantonness, the Saturnalia of a spirit, which is consecrating and preparing itself for long and terrible resolutions. The " fool " in the form of " science."
992. The new order of rank among spirits; tragic natures no longer in the van.
993. It is a comfort to me to know that over the smoke and filth of human baseness there is a higher and brighter mankind, which, judging from their number, must be a small race (for everything that is in any way distinguished is ipso facto rare). A man does not belong to this race because he happens to be more gifted, more virtuous, more heroic, or more loving than the men below, but because he is colder, brighter, more far-sighted, and more lonely; because he endures, prefers, and even insists upon, loneliness as the joy, the privilege, yea, even the condition of existence; because he lives amid clouds and lightnings as among his equals, and likewise among sunrays, dewdrops, snowflakes, and all that which must needs come from the heights, and which in its course moves ever from heaven to earth. The desire to look aloft is not our desire. Heroes, martyrs, geniuses, and enthusiasts of all kinds, are not quiet, patient, subtle, cold, or slow enough for us.
994. The absolute conviction that valuations above and below are different; that innumerable ex periences are wanting to the latter: that when looking upwards from below misunderstandings are necessary.
995. How do men attain to great power and to great tasks? All the virtues and proficiences of the body and the soul are little by little laboriously acquired, through great industry, self-control, and keeping one s self within narrow bounds, through a frequent, energetic, and genuine repetition of the same work and of the same hardships; but there are men who are the heirs and masters of this slowly acquired and manifold treasure of virtues and proficiences because, owing to happy and reasonable marriages and also to lucky accidents, the acquired and accumulated forces of many generations, instead of being squandered and subdivided, have been assembled together by means of steadfast struggling and willing. And thus, in the end, a man appears who is such a monster of strength, that he craves for a monstrous task. For it is our power which has command of us: and the wretched intellectual play of aims and intentions and motivations lies only in the foreground however much weak eyes may recognise the principal factors in these things.
996. The sublime man has the highest value, even when he is most delicate and fragile, because an abundance of very difficult and rare things have been reared through many generations and united in him.