Part 12

Our knowledge has become scientific to the extent in which it has been able to make use of number and measure. It might be worth while to try and see whether a scientific order of values might not be constructed according to a scale of numbers and measures representing energy.... All other values are matters of prejudice, simplicity, and misunderstanding. They may all be reduced to that scale of numbers and measures representing energy. The ascent in this scale would represent an increase of value, the descent a diminution.

But here appearance and prejudice are against one (moral values are only apparent values compared with those which are physiological).

711.

Why the standpoint of "value" lapses:--

Because in the _"whole process of the universe" the work of mankind does not come under consideration_; because a general process (viewed in the light of a system) does not exist.

Because there is no such thing as a whole; because no _depreciation of human_ existence or human aims can be made in regard to something that does not exist.

Because "necessity," "causality," "design," are merely useful "_semblances._"

Because the aim is _not_ "the increase of the sphere of consciousness," _but the increase of power_; in which increase the utility of consciousness is also contained; and the same holds good of pleasure and pain.

Because a mere _means_ must not be elevated to the highest criterion of value (such as states of consciousness like pleasure and pain, if consciousness is in itself only a means).

Because the world is not an organism at all, but a thing of chaos; because the development of "intellectuality" is only a means tending relatively to extend the duration of an organisation.

Because all "desirability" has no sense in regard to the general character of existence.

712.

"God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying and undeifying. _But withal there is no zenith of values,_ but only a zenith of _power._

Absolute _exclusion of mechanical and materialistic interpretations._ they are both only expressions of inferior states, of emotions deprived of all spirit (of the "will to power").

_The retrograde movement front the zenith_ of development (the intellectualisation of power on some slave-infected soil) may be shown to be the _result_ of the highest degree of energy _turning against_ itself, once it no longer has anything to organise, and utilising its power in order to _disorganise._

_(a)_ The ever-increasing _suppression_ of societies, and the latter's subjection by a smaller number of stronger individuals.

(b) The ever-increasing suppression of the privileged and the strong, hence the rise of democracy, and ultimately of _anarchy,_ in the elements.

713.

_Value_ is the highest amount of power that a man can assimilate--a man, not mankind! Mankind is much more of a means than an end. It is a question of type: mankind is merely the experimental material; it is the overflow of the ill-constituted--a field of ruins.

714.

Words relating to values are merely banners planted on those spots where a _new blessedness_ was discovered--a new _feeling._

715.

The standpoint of "value" is the same as that of the _conditions_ of _preservation_ and _enhancement,_ in regard to complex creatures of relative stability appearing in the course of evolution.

There are no such things as lasting and ultimate entities, no atoms, no monads: here also "permanence" was first introduced by ourselves (from practical, utilitarian, and other motives).

"The forms that rule"; the sphere of the subjugated is continually extended; or it decreases or increases according to the conditions (nourishment) being either favourable or unfavourable.

"Value" is essentially the standpoint for the increase or decrease of these dominating centres (pluralities in any case; for "unity" cannot be observed anywhere in the nature of development).

The means of expression afforded by language are useless for the purpose of conveying any facts concerning "development": the need of positing a rougher world of stable existences and things forms part of our _eternal desire for preservation._ We may speak of atoms and monads in a relative sense: and this is certain, _that the smallest world is the most stable world ..._. There is no such thing as will: there are only punctuations of will, which are constantly increasing and decreasing their power.

III

THE WILL TO POWER AS EXEMPLIFIED IN SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.

1. Society and the State.

716.

We take it as a principle that only individuals feel any responsibility. Corporations are invented to do what the individual has not the courage to do. For this reason all communities are vastly more upright and instructive, as regards the nature of man, than the individual who is too cowardly to have the courage of his own desires.

All altruism is the prudence of the private man. societies are not mutually altruistic. The commandment, "Thou shalt love thy next-door neighbour," has never been extended to thy neighbour in general. Rather what Manu says is probably truer: "We must conceive of all the States on our own frontier, and their allies, as being hostile, and for the same reason we must consider all of their neighbours as being friendly to us."

The study of society is invaluable, because man in society is far more childlike than man individually. Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power, and order. Manu's words again are simple and dignified: "Virtue could hardly rely on her own strength alone. Really it is only the fear of punishment that keeps men in their limits, and leaves every one in peaceful possession of his own."

717.

The State, or _unmorality_ organised, is from within--the police, the penal code, status, commerce, and the family; and from without, the will to war, to power, to conquest and revenge.

A multitude will do things an individual will not, because of the division of responsibility, of command and execution; because the virtues of obedience, duty, patriotism, and local sentiment are all introduced; because feelings of pride, severity, strength, hate, and revenge in short, all typical traits are upheld, and these are characteristics utterly alien to the herd-man.

718.

You haven't, any of you, the courage either to kill or to flog a man. But the huge machinery of the State quells the individual and makes him decline to be answerable for his own deed (obedience, loyalty, etc.).

Everything that a man does in the service of the State is against his own nature. Similarly, everything he learns in view of future service of the State. This result is obtained through division of labour (so that responsibility is subdivided too):--

The legislator--and he who fulfils the law.

The teacher of discipline--and those who have grown hard and severe under discipline.

719.

A division of labour among the emotions exists inside society, making individuals and classes produce an imperfect, but more useful, kind of soul. Observe how every type in society has become atrophied with regard to certain emotions with the view of fostering and accentuating other emotions.

Morality may be thus justified:--

_Economically,_--as aiming at the greatest possible use of all individual power, with the view of preventing the waste of exceptional natures.

_Æsthetically,_--as the formation of fixed types, and the pleasure in one's own.

_Politically,_--as the art of bearing with the severe divergencies of the degrees of power in society.

_Psychologically,_ as an imaginary preference for the bungled and the mediocre, in order to preserve the weak.

720.

Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd.

721.

Impotence to power, how it disguises itself and plays the hypocrite, as obedience, subordination, the pride of duty and morality, submission, devotion, love (the idolisation and apotheosis of the commander is a kind of compensation, and indirect self-enhancement). It veils itself further under fatalism and resignation, objectivity, self-tyranny, stoicism, asceticism, self-abnegation, hallowing. Other disguises are: criticism, pessimism, indignation, susceptibility, beautiful soul, virtue, self--deification, philosophic detachment, freedom from contact with the world (the realisation of impotence disguises itself as disdain).

There is a universal need to exercise some kind of power, or to create for one's self the appearance of some power, if only temporarily, in the form of intoxication.

There are men who desire power simply for the sake of the happiness it will bring; these belong chiefly to political parties. Other men have the same yearning, even when power means visible disadvantages, the sacrifice of their happiness, and well-being; they are the ambitious. Other men, again, are only like dogs in a manger, and will have power only to prevent its falling into the hands of others on whom they would then be dependent.

722.

If there be justice and equality before the law, what would thereby be abolished?--Suspense, enmity, hatred. But it is a mistake to think that you thereby increase happiness; for the Corsicans rejoice in more happiness than the Continentals.

723.

Reciprocity and the expectation of a reward is one of the most seductive forms of the devaluation of mankind. It involves that equality which depreciates any gulf as immoral.

724.

Utility is entirely dependent upon the object to be attained,--the wherefore? And this wherefore, this purpose, is again dependent upon the degree of power. Utilitarianism is not, therefore, a fundamental doctrine; it is only a story of sequels, and cannot be made obligatory for all.

725.

Of old, the State was regarded theoretically as a utilitarian institution; it has now become so in a practical sense. The time of kings has gone by, because people are no longer worthy of them. They do not wish to see the symbol of their ideal in a king, but only a means to their own ends. That's the whole truth.

726.

I am trying to grasp the absolute sense of the communal standard of judgment and valuation, naturally without any intention of deducing morals.

The degree of psychological falsity and denseness required in order to sanctify the emotions essential to preservation and expansion of power, and to create a good conscience for them.

The degree of stupidity required in order that general rules and values may remain possible (including education, formation of culture, and training).

The degree of inquisitiveness, suspicion, and intolerance required in order to deal with exceptions, to suppress them as criminals, and thus to give them bad consciences, and to make them sick with their own singularity.

727.

Morality is essentially a shield, a means of defence; and, in so far, it is a sign of the imperfectly developed man (he is still in armour; he is still stoical).

The fully developed man is above all provided with _weapons:_ he is a man who _attacks._

The weapons of war are converted into weapons of peace (out of scales and carapaces grow feathers and hair).

728.

The very notion, "living organism", implies that there must be growth,--that there must be a striving after an extension of power, and therefore a process of absorption of other forces. Under the drowsiness brought on by moral narcotics, people speak of the right of the individual to _defend himself;_ on the same principle one might speak of his right to _attack_: for _both_--and the latter more than the former--are necessities where all living organisms are concerned: aggressive and defensive egoism are not questions of choice or even of "free will," but they are fatalities of life itself.

In this respect it is immaterial whether one have an individual, a living body, or "an advancing society" in view. The right to punish (or society's means of defence) has been arrived at only through a misuse of the word "right": a right is acquired only by contract, but self-defence and self-preservation do not stand upon the basis of a contract. A people ought at least, with quite as much justification, to be able to regard its lust of power, either in arms, commerce, trade, or colonisation, as a right the right of growth, perhaps.... When the instincts of a society ultimately make it give up war and renounce conquest, it is decadent: it is ripe for democracy and the rule of shopkeepers. In the majority of cases, it is true, assurances of peace are merely stupefying draughts.

729.

The maintenance of the military State is the last means of adhering to the great tradition of the past; or, where it has been lost, to revive it. By means of it the superior or strong type of man is preserved, and all institutions and ideas which perpetuate enmity and order of rank in States, such as national feeling, protective tariffs, etc., may on that account seem justified.

730.

In order that a thing may last longer than a person (that is to say, in order that a work may outlive the individual who has created it), all manner of limitations and prejudices must be imposed upon people. But how? By means of love, reverence, gratitude towards the person who created the work, or by means of the thought that our ancestors fought for it, or by virtue of the feeling that the safety of our descendants will be secured if we uphold the work--for instance, the _polis._ Morality is essentially the means of; making something survive the individual, because it makes him of necessity a slave. Obviously the aspect from above is different from the aspect from below, and will lead to quite different interpretations. How is organised power _maintained_?--By the fact that countless generations sacrifice themselves to its cause.

731.

Marriage, property, speech, tradition, race, family, people, and State, are each links in a chain--separate parts which have a more or less high or low origin. Economically they are justified by the surplus derived from the advantages of uninterrupted work and multiple production, as weighed against the disadvantages of greater expense in barter and the difficulty of making things last. (The working parts are multiplied, and yet remain largely idle. Hence the cost of producing them is greater, and the cost of maintaining them by no means inconsiderable.) The advantage consists in avoiding interruption and incident loss. Nothing is more expensive than a start. "The higher the standard of living, the greater will be the expense of maintenance, nourishment, and propagation, as also the risk and the probability of an utter fall on reaching the summit."

732.

In bourgeois marriages, naturally in the best sense of the word marriage, there is no question whatsoever of love any more than there is of money. For on love no institution can be founded. The whole matter consists in society giving leave to two persons to satisfy their sexual desires under conditions obviously designed to safeguard social order. Of course there must be a certain attraction between the parties and a vast amount of good nature, patience, compatibility, and charity in any such contract. But the word love should not be misused as regards such a union. For two lovers, in the real and strong meaning of the word, the satisfaction of sexual desire is unessential; it is a mere symbol. For the one side, as I have already said, it is a symbol of unqualified submission: for the other, a sign of condescension--a sign of the appropriation of property. Marriage, as understood by the real old nobility, meant the breeding forth of the race (but are there any nobles nowadays? _Quaeritur_),--that is to say, the maintenance of a fixed definite type of ruler, for which object husband and wife were sacrificed. Naturally the first consideration here had nothing to do with love; on the contrary! It did not even presuppose that mutual sympathy which is the _sine qua non_ of the bourgeois marriage. The prime consideration was the interest of the race, and in the second place came the interest of a particular class. But in the face of the coldness and rigour and calculating lucidity of such a noble concept of marriage as prevailed among every healthy aristocracy, like that of ancient Athens, and even of Europe during the eighteenth century, we warm-blooded animals, with our miserably oversensitive hearts, we "moderns," cannot restrain a slight shudder. That is why love as a passion, in the big meaning of this word, was invented for, and in, an aristocratic community--where convention and abstinence are most severe.

733.

_Concerning the future of marriage._ A super-tax on inherited property, a longer term of military service for bachelors of a certain minimum age within the community.

Privileges of all sorts for fathers who lavish boys upon the world, and perhaps plural votes as well.

A medical certificate as a condition of any marriage, endorsed by the parochial authorities, in which a series of questions addressed to the parties and the medical officers must be answered ("family histories").

As a counter-agent to prostitution, or as its ennoblement, I would recommend leasehold marriages (to last for a term of years or months), with adequate provision for the children.

Every marriage to be warranted and sanctioned by a certain number of good men and true, of the parish, as a parochial obligation.

734.

_Another commandment of philanthropy._--There are cases where to have a child would be a crime--for example, for chronic invalids and extreme neurasthenics. These people should be converted to chastity, and for this purpose the music of _Parsifal_ might at all events be tried. For Parsifal himself, that born fool, had ample reasons for not desiring to propagate. Unfortunately, however, one of the regular symptoms of exhausted stock is the inability to exercise any self-restraint in the presence of stimuli, and the tendency to respond to the smallest sexual attraction. It would be quite a mistake, for instance, to think of Leopardi as a chaste man. In such cases the priest and moralist play a hopeless game: it would be far better to send for the apothecary. Lastly, society here has a positive duty to fulfil, and of all the demands that are made on it, there are few more urgent and necessary than this one. Society as the trustee of life, is responsible to life for every botched life that comes into existence, and as it has to atone for such lives, it ought consequently to make it impossible for them ever to see the light of day: it should in many cases actually prevent the act of procreation, and may, without any regard for rank, descent, or intellect, hold in readiness the most rigorous forms of compulsion and restriction, and, under certain circumstances, have recourse to castration. The Mosaic law, "Thou shalt do no murder," is a piece of ingenuous puerility compared with the earnestness of this forbidding of life to decadents, "Thou shalt not beget"!!! ... For life itself recognises no solidarity or equality of rights between the healthy and unhealthy parts of an organism. The latter must at all cost be _eliminated,_ lest the whole fall to pieces. Compassion for decadents, equal rights for the physiologically botched--this would be the very pinnacle of immorality, it would be setting up Nature's most formidable opponent as morality itself!

735.

There are some delicate and morbid natures, the so-called idealists, who can never under any circumstances rise above a coarse, immature crime: yet it is the great justification of their anæmic little existence, it is the small requital for their lives of cowardice and falsehood to have been for one _instant_ at least--strong. But they generally collapse after such an act.

736.

In our civilised world we seldom hear of any but the bloodless, trembling criminal, overwhelmed by the curse and contempt of society, doubting even himself, and always belittling and belying his deeds--a misbegotten sort of criminal; that is why we are opposed to the idea that _all great men have been criminals_ (only in the grand style, and neither petty nor pitiful), that crime must be inherent in greatness (this at any rate is the unanimous verdict of all those students of human nature who have sounded the deepest waters of great souls). To feel one's self adrift from all questions of ancestry, conscience, and duty--this is the danger with which every great man is confronted. Yet this is precisely what he desires: he desires the great goal, and consequently the means thereto.

737.

In times when man is led by reward and punishment, the class of man which the legislator has in view is still of a low and primitive type: he is treated as one treats a child. In our latter-day culture, general degeneracy removes all sense from reward and punishment. This determination of action by the prospect of reward and punishment presupposes young, strong, and vigorous races. In effete races impulses are so irrepressible that a mere idea has no force whatever. Inability to offer any resistance to a stimulus, and the feeling that one must react to it: this excessive susceptibility of decadents makes all such systems of punishment and reform altogether senseless.

The idea "amelioration" presupposes a normal and strong creature whose action must in some way be balanced or cancelled if he is not to be lost and turned into an enemy of the community.

738.

_The effect of prohibition._ Every power which forbids and which knows how to excite fear in the person forbidden creates a guilty conscience. (That is to say, a person has a certain desire but is conscious of the danger of gratifying it, and is consequently forced to be secretive, underhand, and cautious.) Thus any prohibition deteriorates the character of those who do not willingly submit themselves to it, but are constrained thereto.

739.

_"Punishment and reward."_--These two things stand or fall together. Nowadays no one will accept a reward or acknowledge that any authority should have the power to punish. Warfare has been reformed. We have a desire: it meets with opposition: we then see that we shall most easily obtain it by coming to some agreement--by drawing up a contract. In modern society where every one has given his assent to a certain contract, the criminal is a man who breaks that contract. This at least is a clear concept. But in that case, anarchists and enemies of social order could not be tolerated.

740.

Crimes belong to the category of revolt against the social system, A rebel is not punished, he is simply suppressed. He _may_ be an utterly contemptible and pitiful creature; but there is nothing intrinsically despicable about rebellion in fact, in our particular society revolt is far from being disgraceful. There are cases in which a rebel deserves honour precisely because he is conscious of certain elements in society which cry aloud for hostility; for such a man rouses us from our slumbers. When a criminal commits but one crime against a particular person, it does not alter the fact that all his instincts urge him to make a stand against the whole social system. His isolated act is merely a symptom.