mental indigence). " Good company," in fact, finds everything insipid which is not forbidden and con sidered compromising in bourgeois circles; and the case is the same with books, music, politics, and opinions on women.
120. The simplification of man in the nineteenth century (The eighteenth century was that of elegance, subtlety, and generous feeling). Not "return to nature "; for no natural humanity has ever existed yet. Scholastic, unnatural, and antinatural values are the rule and the beginning; man only reaches Nature after a long struggle he never turns his " back " to her...To be natural means, to dare to be as immoral as Nature is. We are coarser, more direct, richer in irony towards generous feelings, even when we are be neath them. Our haute votte, the society consisting of our rich and leisured men, is more natural: people hunt each other, the love of the sexes is a kind of sport in which marriage is both a charm and an obstacle; people entertain each other and live for the sake of pleasure; bodily advantages stand in the first rank, and curiosity and daring are the rule. Our attitude towards knowledge is more natural; we are innocent in our absolute spiritual debauchery, we hate pathetic and hieratic manners, we delight in that which is most strictly prohibited, we should scarcely recognise any interest in knowledge if we were bored in acquiring it. Our attitude to morality is also more natural. Principles have become a laughing-stock; no one dares to speak of his " duty," unless in irony. But a helpful, benevolent disposition is highly valued. (Morality is located in instinct and the rest is despised. Besides this there are few points of honor.) Our attitude to politics is more natural: we see problems of power, of the quantum of power, against another quantum. We do not believe in a right that does not proceed from a power which is able to uphold it. We regard all rights as conquests. Our valuation of great men and things is more natural: we regard passion as a privilege; we can conceive of nothing great which does not involve a great crime; all greatness is associated in our minds with a certain standing-beyond-the-pale in morality. Our attitude to Nature is more natural: we no longer love her for her " innocence," her " reason," her " beauty," we have made her beautifully devilish and " foolish." But instead of despising her on that account, since then we have felt more closely related to her and more familiar in her presence. She does not aspire to virtue: we therefore respect her. Our attitude towards Art is more natural: we do not exact beautiful, empty lies, etc., from her; brutal positivism reigns supreme, and it ascer tains things with perfect calm. In short: there are signs showing that the European of the nineteenth century is less ashamed of his instincts; he has gone a long way towards acknowledging his unconditional naturalness and immorality, without bitterness: on the contrary, he is strong enough to endure this point of view alone. To some ears this will sound as though corruption had made strides: and certain it is that man has not drawn nearer to the " Nature " which Rousseau speaks about, but has gone one step farther in the civilisation before which Rousseau stood in horror. We have grown stronger, we have drawn nearer t the seventeenth century, more particularly to the taste which reigned towards its close (Dancourt, Le Sage, Renard).
121. Culture versus Civilization. culminating stages of culture and civilisation lie apart: one mutt not be led astray as regards the fundamental antagonism existing between culture and civilisa tion. From the moral standpoint, great peno in the history of culture have always been periods of corruption; while on the other hand, those periods in which man was deliberately and compulsorily tamed ("civilization") have always been periods of intolerance towards the most intellectual and most audacious natures. Civilization desires some thing different from what culture strives after: their aims may perhaps be opposed...122. What I warn people against: confounding the instincts of decadence" with those of humanity; Confounding the dissolving means of civilization and those which necessarily promote decadence, with culture; Confounding debauchery, and the principle, "laisser aller," with the Will to Power (the latter is the exact reverse of the former).
123. The unsolved problems which I set anew: the problem of civilisation, the struggle between Rous seau and Voltaire about the year 1760. Man becomes deeper, more mistrustful, more " immoral," stronger, more self-confident and therefore " more natural", that is "progress." In this way, by a process of division of labour, the more evil strata and the milder and tamer strata of society get separated: so that the general facts are not visible at first sight...It is a sign of strength, and of the self-control and fascination of the strong, that these stronger strata possess the arts in order to make their greater powers for evil felt as something " higher" As soon as there is " progress " there is a Revaluation of the strengthened factors into the " good."
124. Man must have the courage of his natural instincts restored to him. The poor opinion he has of himself must be destroyed (not in the sense of the individual, but in the sense of the natural man...) The contradictions in things must be eradicated, after it has been well understood that we were responsible for them Social idiosyncrasies must be stamped out of existence (guilt, punishment, justice, honesty, freedom, love, etc. etc.) An advance towards " naturalness ": in all politi cal questions, even in the relations between parties, even in merchants, workmen s, or contractors parties, only questions of power come into play: " what one can do " is the first question, what one ought to do is only a secondary consideration.
125. Socialism or the tyranny of the meanest and the most brainless, that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the mummers, brought to its zenith, is, as a matter of fact, the logical con clusion of " modern ideas " and their latent anarchy: but in the genial atmosphere of demo cratic well-being the capacity for forming resolu tions or even for coming to an end at all, is paralysed. Men follow but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on the whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces of present-day socialists and what wretched and nonsensical feelings does not their style reveal to us! and the childish lamblike happiness of their hopes and desires. Nevertheless, in many places in Europe, there may be violent hand-to-hand struggles and irruptions on their account: the coming century is likely to be convulsed in more than one spot, and the Paris Commune, which finds defenders and advocates even in Germany, will seem to have been but a slight indigestion compared with what is to come. Be this as it may, there will always be too many people of property for socialism ever to signify anything more than an attack of illness: and these people of property are like one man with one faith, " one must possess something in 103 order to be some one." This, however, is the oldest and most wholesome of all instincts; I should add: " one must desire more than one has in order to become more." For this is the teaching which life itself preaches to all living things: the morality of Development. To have and to wish to have more, in a word, Growth that is life itself. In the teaching of socialism " a will to the denial of life " is but poorly concealed: botched men and races they must be who have devised a teaching of this sort. In fact, I even wish a few experiments might be made to show that in a socialistic society, life denies itself, and itself cuts away its own roots. The earth is big enough and man is still unex hausted enough for a practical lesson of this sort and demonstratio ad absurdum even if it were accomplished only by a vast expenditure of lives to seem worthwhile to me. Still, Socialism, like a restless mole beneath the foundations of a society wallowing in stupidity, will be able to achieve something useful and salutary: it delays " Peace on Earth " and the whole process of character- softening of the democratic herding animal; it forces the European to have an extra supply of intellect, that is to say, craft and caution, and prevents his entirely abandoning the manly and warlike qualities, it also saves Europe awhile from the marasmus femininus which is threatening it.
126. The most favourable obstacles and remedies of modernity: (1) Compulsory military service with real wars in which all joking is laid aside. (2) National thick-headedness (which simplifies and concentrates). (3) Improved nutrition (meat). (4) Increasing cleanliness and wholesomeness in the home. (5) The predominance of physiology over theology, morality, economics, and politics. (6) Military discipline in the exaction and the practice of one s " duty " (it is no longer customary to praise).
127. I am delighted at the military development of Europe, also at the inner anarchical conditions: the period of quietude and " Chinadom " which Galiani prophesied for this century is now over. Personal and manly capacity, bodily capacity recovers its value, valuations are becoming more physical, nutrition consists ever more and more of flesh. Fine men have once more become possible. Bloodless sneaks (with mandarins at their head, as Comte imagined them) are now a matter of the past. The savage in every one of us is acknowledged even the wild animal. Precisely on that account, philosophers will have a better chance. Kant is a scarecrow!
128. I have not yet seen any reasons to feel dis couraged. He who acquires and preserves a strong will, together with a broad mind, has a more favourable chance now than ever he had. For the plasticity of man has become exceedingly great in democratic Europe: men who learn easily, who readily adapt themselves, are the rule: the gregarious animal of a high order of intelligence is prepared. He who would command finds those who must obey: I have Napoleon and Bismarck in mind, for instance. The struggle against strong and unintelligent wills, which forms the surest obstacle in one s way, is really insignificant Who would not be able to knock down these " objective " gentlemen with weak wills, such as Ranke and Renan!
129. Spiritual enlightenment is an unfailing means of making men uncertain, weak of will, and needful of succour and support; in short, of developing the herding instincts in them. That is why all great artist-rulers hitherto (Confucius in China, the Roman Empire, Napoleon, Popedom at a time when they had the courage of their worldliness and frankly pursued power) in whom the ruling instincts, that had prevailed until their time, culminated, also made use of the spiritual enlighten ment; or at least allowed it to be supreme (after the style of the Popes of the Renaissance). The self-deception of the masses on this point, in every democracy for instance, is of the greatest possible value: all that makes men smaller and more amenable is pursued under the title " progress."
130. The highest equity and mildness as a condition of weakness (the New Testament and the early Christian community manifesting itself in the form of utter foolishness in the Englishmen, Darwin and Wallace). Your equity, ye higher men, drives you to universal suffrage, etc.; your " humanity " urges you to be milder towards crime and stupidity. In the end you will thus help stupidity and harmlessness to conquer. Outwardly: Ages of terrible wars, insurrections, explosions. Imwardly: ever more and more weakness among men; events take the form of excitants. The Parisian as the type of the European extreme. Consequences: (1) Savages (at first, of course, in conformity with the culture that has reigned hitherto); (2) Sovereign individuals (where powerful barbarous masses and emancipation from all that has been, are crossed). The age of greatest stupidity, brutality, and wretchedness in the masses, and in the highest individuals.
131. An incalculable number of higher individuals now perish: but he who escapes their fate is as strong as the devil. In this respect we are reminded of the conditions which prevailed in the Renaissance.
132. How are Good Europeans such as ourselves distinguished from the patriots? In the first place, we are atheists and immoralists, but we take care to support the religions and the morality which we associate with the gregarious instinct: for by means of them, an order of men is, so to speak, being prepared, which must at some time or other fall into our hands, which must actually crave for our hands. Beyond Good and Evil, certainly; but we insist upon the unconditional and strict preserva tion of herd-morality. We reserve ourselves the right to several kinds of philosophy which it is necessary to learn: under certain circumstances, the pessimistic kind as a hammer; a European Buddhism might perhaps be indispensable. We should probably support the development and the maturation of democratic tendencies; for it conduces to weakness of will: in " Socialism " we recognise a thorn which prevents smug ease. Attitude towards the people. Our prejudices; we pay attention to the results of cross-breeding. Detached, well-to-do, strong: irony concerning the " press " and its culture. Our care: that scientific men should not become journalists. We mistrust any form of culture that tolerates news paper reading or writing. We make our accidental positions (as Goethe and Stendhal did), our experiences, a foreground, and we lay stress upon them, so that we may deceive concerning our backgrounds. We ourselves wait and avoid putting our heart into them. They serve us as refuges,such as a wanderer might require and use but we avoid feeling at home in them. We are ahead of our fellows in that we have had a disciplina voluntatis. All strength is directed to the development of the will, an art which allows us to wear masks, an art of understanding beyond the passions (also " super- European " thought at times). This is our preparation before becoming the law-givers of the future and the lords of the earth; if not we, at least our children. Caution where marriage is concerned.
133. The twentieth century. The Abbe Galiani says somewhere: " La prfooyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de F Europe. Si I on voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prtvoir, tout le monde serait tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu on serait plus mal- heureux parce qu on ne feraitpas la guerre" As I in no way share the unwarlike views of my deceased friend Galiani, I have no fear whatever of saying something beforehand with the view of conjuring in some way the cause of wars. A condition of excessive consciousness, after the worst of earthquakes: with new questions.
134. It is the time of the great noon, of the most appalling enlightenment: my particular kind of Pessimism: the great starting-point. (i) Fundamental contradiction between civil isation and the elevation of man. (2) Moral valuations regarded as a history of lies and the art of calumny in the service of the Will to Power (of the will of the herd, which rises against stronger men). (3) The conditions which determine every elevation in culture (the facilitation of a selection being made at the cost of a crowd) are the con ditions of all growth. (4). The multiformity of the world as a question of strength, which sees all things in the perspective of their growth. The moral Christian values to be regarded as the insurrection and mendacity of slaves (in comparison with the aristrocratic values of the ancient world).
SECOND BOOK. A CRITICISM OF THE HIGHEST VALUES THAT HAVE PREVAILED HITHERTO.
I. CRITICISM OF RELIGION ALL the beauty and sublimity with which we have invested real and imagined things, I will show to be the property and product of man, and this should be his most beautiful apology. Man as a poet, as a thinker, as a god, as love, as power. Oh, the regal liberality with which he has lavished gifts upon things in order to im poverish himself and make himself feel wretched! Hitherto, this has been his greatest disinterested ness, that he admired and worshipped, and knew how to conceal from himself that he it was who had created what he admired.
I. CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS.
135. The origin of religion. Just as the illiterate man of today believes that his wrath is the cause of his being angry, that his mind is the cause of his thinking, that his soul is the cause of his feeling, in short, just as a mass of psychological entities are still unthinkingly postulated as causes; so, in a still more primitive age, the same pheno mena were interpreted by man by means of personal entities. Those conditions of his soul which seemed strange, overwhelming, and raptur ous, he regarded as obsessions and bewitching influences emanating from the power of some personality. (Thus the Christian, the most puerile and backward man of this age, traces hope, peace, and the feeling of deliverance to a psychological inspiration on the part of God: being by nature a sufferer and a creature in need of repose, states of happiness, peace, and resigna tion, perforce seem strange to him, and seem to need some explanation.) Among intelligent, strong, and vigorous races, the epileptic is mostly the cause of a belief in the existence of some foreign power; but all such examples of apparent subjection as, for instance, the bearing of the exalted man, of the poet, of the great criminal, or the passions, love and revenge lead to the invention of supernatural powers. A condition is made concrete by being identified with a personality, and when this condition overtakes anybody, it is ascribed to that personality. In other words: in the psychological concept of God, a certain state of the soul is personified as a cause in order to appear as an effect. The psychological logic is as follows: when the feeling of power suddenly seizes and overwhelms a man, and this takes place in the case of all the great passions, a doubt arises in him concerning his own person: he dare not think himself the cause of this astonishing sensation and thus he posits a stronger person, a Godhead as its cause. In short, the origin of religion lies in the extreme feelings of power, which, being strange, take men by surprise: and just as the sick man, who feels one of his limbs unaccountably heavy, concludes that another man must be sitting on it, so the ingenuous homo religiosus, divides himself up into several people. Religion is an example of the " alteration de la personality? A sort of fear and sensation of terror in one s own presence...But also a feeling of inordinate rapture and exaltation. Among sick people, the sensation of health suffices to awaken a belief in the proximity of God.
136. Rudimentary psychology of the religious man: All changes are effects; all effects are effects of will (the notion of " Nature " and of " natural law," is lacking); all effects presuppose an agent. Rudimentary psychology: one is only a cause oneself, when one knows that one has willed something. Result: States of power impute to man the feeling that he is not the cause of them, that he is not responsible for them: they come without being willed to do so consequently we cannot be their originators: will that is not free (that is to say, the knowledge of a change in our condition which we have not helped to bring about) requires a strong will. Consequence of this rudimentary psychology: Man has never dared to credit himself with his strong and startling moods, he has always con ceived them as " passive," as " imposed upon him from outside ": Religion is the offshoot of a doubt concerning the entity of the person, an alteration of the personality: in so far as every thing great and strong in man was considered superhuman and foreign, man belittled himself, he laid the two sides, the very pitiable and weak side, and the very strong and startling side apart, in two spheres, and called the one " Man " and the other " God." And he has continued to act on these lines; during the period of the moral idiosyncrasy he did not interpret his lofty and sublime moral states as " proceeding from his own will " or as the " work " of the person. Even the Christian himself divides his personality into two parts, the one a mean and weak fiction which he calls man, and the other which he calls God (Deliverer and Saviour). Religion has lowered the concept " man "; its ultimate conclusion is that all goodness, greatness, and truth are superhuman, and are only obtainable by the grace of God 137. One way of raising man out of his self-abase ment, which brought about the decline of the point of view that classed all lofty and strong states of the soul, as strange, was the theory of relation ship. These lofty and strong states of the soul could at least be interpreted as the influence of our forebears; we belonged to each other, we were irrevocably joined; we grew in our own esteem, by acting according to the example of a model known to us all. There is an attempt on the part of noble families to associate religion with their own feelings of self-respect. Poets and seers do the same thing; they feel proud that they have been worthy, that they have been selected for such association, they esteem it an honor, not to be considered at all as individuals, but as mere mouthpieces (Homer). Man gradually takes possession of the highest and proudest states of his soul, as also of his acts and his works. Formerly it was believed that one paid oneself the greatest honor by denying one s own responsibility for the highest deeds one accomplished, and by ascribing them to God. The will which was not free, appeared to be that which imparted a higher value to a deed: in those days a god was postulated as the author of the deed.
138. Priests are the actors of something which is supernatural, either in the way of ideals, gods, or saviours, and they have to make people believe in them; in this they find their calling, this is the purpose of their instincts; in order to make it as credible as possible, they have to exert themselves to the utmost extent in the art of posing; their actor s sagacity must, above all, aim at giving them a clean conscience, by means of which, alone, it is possible to persuade effectively.
139. The priest wishes to make it an understood thing, that he is the highest type of man, that he rules, even over those who wield the power, that he is indispensable and unassailable, that he is the strongest power in the community, not by any means to be replaced or undervalued. Means thereto: he alone is cultured; he alone is the man of virtue; he alone has sovereign power over himself: he alone is, in a certain sense, God, and ultimately goes back to the Godhead; he alone is the middleman between God and others; the Godhead administers punishment to every one who puts the priest at a disadvantage, or who thinks in opposition to him. Means thereto: Truth exists. There is only one way of attaining to it, and that is to become a priest. Everything good, which relates either to order, nature, or tradition, is to be traced to the wisdom of the priests. The Holy Book is their work. The whole of nature is only a fulfilment of the maxims which it contains. No other source of goodness exists than the priests. Every other kind of perfection, even the warrior s, is different in rank from that of the priests. Consequence: If the priest is to be the highest type, then the degrees which lead to his virtues must be the degrees of value among men. Study, emancipation from material things, inactivity, im passibility, absence of passion, solemnity; the opposite of all this is found in the lowest type of man. The priest has taught a kind of morality which conduced to his being considered the highest type of man. He conceives a type which is the reverse of his own: the Chandala. By making these as contemptible as possible, some strength is lent to the order of castes. The priest s excessive fear of sensuality also implies that the latter is the most serious threat to the order of castes (that is to say, order in general)...Every " free tendency " in puncto puncti overthrows the laws of marriage.
140. The philosopher considered as the development of the priestly type: He has the heritage of the priest in his blood; even as a rival he is compelled to fight with the same weapons as the priest of his time; he aspires to the highest authority. What is it that bestows authority upon men who have no physical power to wield (no army, no arms at all...)? How do such men gain authority over those who are in possession of material power, and who represent authority? (Philosophers enter the lists against princes, vic torious conquerors, and wise statesmen.) They can do it only by establishing the belief that they are in possession of a power which is higher and stronger God. Nothing is strong enough: every one is in need of the mediation and the services of priests. They establish themselves as indispensable intercessors. The conditions of their existence are: (i) That people believe in the absolute superiority of their god, in fact believe in their god; (2) that there is no other access, no direct access to god, save through them. The second condition alone gives rise to the concept " heterodoxy "; the first to the concept " dis believers " (that is to say, he who believes in another god).
141. A Criticism of the Holy Lie. That a lie is allowed in pursuit of holy ends is a principle which belongs to the theory of all priestcraft, and the object of this inquiry is to discover to what extent it belongs to its practice. But philosophers, too, whenever they intend taking over the leadership of mankind, with the ulterior motives of priests in their minds, have never failed to arrogate to themselves the right to lie: Plato above all. But the most elaborate of lies is the double lie, developed by the typically Arian philosophers of the Vedanta: two systems, contradicting each other in all their main points, but interchangeable, complementary, and mutually expletory, when educational ends were in question. The lie of the one has to create a condition in which the truth of the other can alone become intelligible...How far does the holy lie of priests and philo sophers go? The question here is, what hypo theses do they advance in regard to education, and what are the dogmas they are compelled to invent in order to do justice to these hypotheses? First: they must have power, authority, and absolute credibility on their side. Secondly: they must have the direction of the whole of Nature, so that everything affecting the individual seems to be determined by their law. Thirdly: their domain of power must be very extensive, in order that its control may escape the notice of those they subject: they must know the penal code of the life beyond of the life " after death," and, of course, the means where by the road to blessedness may be discovered. They have to put the notion of a natural course of things out of sight, but as they are intelligent and thoughtful people, they are able to promise a host of effects, which they naturally say are con ditioned by prayer or by the strict observance of their law. They can, moreover, prescribe a large number of things which are exceedingly reasonable only they must not point to experience or empiricism as the source of this wisdom, but to revelation or to the fruits of the " most severe exercises of penance." The holy lie, therefore, applies principally to the purpose of an action (the natural purpose, reason, is made to vanish: a moral purpose, the observ ance of some law, a service to God, seems to be the purpose): to the consequence of an action (the natural consequence is interpreted as something supernatural, and, in order to be on surer ground, other incontrollable and supernatural consequences are foretold). In this way the concepts good and evil are created, and seem quite divorced from the natural concepts: " useful," " harmful," " life-promoting," " life-retarding," indeed, inasmuch as another life is imagined, the former concepts may even be antagonistic to Nature's concepts of good and evil. In this way, the proverbial concept " conscience " is created: an inner voice, which, though it makes itself heard in regard to every action, does not measure the worth of that action according to its results, but according to its conformity or non conformity to the " law." The holy lie therefore invented: (i) a god who punishes and rewards, who recognises and carefully observes the law-book of the priests, and who is particular about sending them into the world as his mouthpieces and plenipotentiaries; (2) an After Life, in which, alone, the great penal machine is supposed to be active to this end the immor tality of the soul was invented; (3) a conscience in man, understood as the knowledge that good and evil are permanent values that God himself speaks through it, whenever its counsels are in conformity with priestly precepts; (4) Morality as the denial of all natural processes, as the subjection of all phenomena to a moral order, as the inter pretation of all phenomena as the effects of a moral order of things (that is to say, the concept of punishment and reward), as the only power and