Part 19

In the case of such an extreme movement, both in tempo and in means, as characterises our civilisation, 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 socialism, or for militarism: if they would have power, and if they should need it, even over the revolutionary 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 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 conditions which have existed hitherto.... We are here face to face with a problem of _economics._

[Footnote 1: The German word is "Naturalist," and really means "realist" in a bad sense.--Tr.]

865.

The state of mind which calls itself "idealism," and which will neither allow mediocrity to be 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 in the Instincts, and satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of man--a kind of _stationary level of mankind._ If ever we get that inevitable and imminent, general control of the economy of the earth, then mankind _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 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 specialised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed -the procreation of the _synthetic_ man who _embodies_ 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.[2]_ 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 the genera] welfare of everybody must necessarily increase with the growing self-sacrifice of everybody. 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.

[Footnote 2: This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche's aristocracy 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.]

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?_

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 passions 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 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 or _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 consist 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 barbarism: 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 (1) to hypocrisy, (2) to qualms of conscience,--creative natures regarded themselves as rebels against God, uncertain and hemmed in by eternal values.

The barbarians showed that the ability o_f 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 Cæsars and castes. On the other hand, there arose the suspicion 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 æsthetic natures, in measure; _the pleasure derived from the beauty of measure,_ was _overlooked_ and _denied,_ because that which was desired was an anti-eudæmonistic 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 bad light upon them--the best men have _remained concealed_--and have often _misunderstood_ themselves.

871.

_Vicious_ and _unbridled people_: their depressing influence upon the _value of the pussions._ 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 constitutes 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, contusion, 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 _unbridled;_ 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 forbidden 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 unbridled) were branded with the most opprobrious names. Even to this day people feel themselves compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia: it is simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised German 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 _naïf._ 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 dispatched all "great men" to Hades--its fight is _against_ 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 performing._ 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 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 of 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 disorders in history! Without the Roman Cæsars 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 I 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 _wanting,_ the great of the past are converted 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 men; they make inferior men stupid.

876.

Buckle affords the best example of the extent to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is incapable 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 instinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant that all that was essential and valuable in such 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 hemispheres.

877.

The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that is its justification. We ought to desire the anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilisation if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon made nationalism possible: that is the latter's excuse.

The value of a man (apart, of course, from morality and immorality: because with these concepts a man's _worth_ is not even skimmed) does not lie in his utility; because he would continue to exist even if there were nobody to whom he could be useful. And why could not that man be the very pinnacle of manhood who was the source of the worst possible effects for his race: so high and so superior, that in his presence everything would go to rack and ruin from envy?

878.

To appraise the value of a man according to his _utility_ to mankind, or according to what he costs it, or the _damage_ he is able to inflict upon it, is just as good and just as bad as to appraise the value of a work of art according to its _effects._ But in this way the value of one man compared with another is not even touched upon. The "moral valuation," in so far as it is _social_ measures men altogether according to their effects. But what about the man who has his own taste on his tongue, who is surrounded and concealed by his isolation, uncommunicative and not to be communicated with; a man whom no one has fathomed yet--that is to say, a creature of a higher, and, at any rate, _different_ species, how would ye appraise his worth, seeing that ye cannot know him and can compare him with nothing?

_Moral valuation_ was the cause of the most enormous obtuseness of judgment: the value of a man in himself is _underrated,_ well-nigh _overlooked,_ practically _denied._ This is the remains of simple-minded teleology: the value of man _can only be measured with regard to other men._

879.

_To be obsessed by moral considerations_ presupposes a very low grade of intellect: it shows that the instinct for special rights, for standing apart, the feeling of freedom in creative natures, in "children of God" (or of the devil), is lacking. And irrespective of whether _he_ preaches a ruling morality or _criticises_ the prevailing ethical code from the point of view of his own ideal: by doing these things a man shows that he belongs to the herd--even though he may be what it is most in need of--that is to say, a "shepherd."

880.

We should substitute morality by the will to our own ends, and _consequently_ to the means to them.

881.

_Concerning the order of rank._--What is it that constitutes the _mediocrity_ of the typical man? That he does not understand that things necessarily have _their other side;_ that he combats evil conditions as if they could be dispensed with, that he will not take the one with the other; that he would fain obliterate and erase the _specific character of a thing,_ of a circumstance, of an age, and of a person, by calling only a portion of their qualities good, and suppressing the remainder. The "desirability" of the mediocre is that which we others combat: their _ideal_ is something which shall no longer contain anything harmful, evil, dangerous, questionable, and destructive. We recognise the reverse of this: that with every growth of man his other side must grow as well; that the highest man, if such a concept be allowed, would be that man who would represent _the antagonistic character of existence_ most strikingly, and would be its glory and its only justification.... Ordinary men may only represent a small corner and nook of this natural character; they perish the moment the multifariousness of the elements composing them, and the tension between their antagonistic traits, increases: but this is the prerequisite for greatness in man. That man should become better and at the same time more evil, is my formula for this inevitable fact.

The majority of people are only piecemeal and fragmentary examples of man: only when all these creatures are jumbled together does one whole man arise Whole ages and whole peoples in this sense, have a fragmentary character about them; it may perhaps be part of the economy of human development that man should develop himself only piecemeal. But, for this reason, one should not forget that the only important consideration is the rise of the synthetic man; that inferior men, and by far the great majority of people, are but rehearsals and exercises out of which here and there a whole man may arise; a man who is a human milestone, and who indicates how far mankind has advanced up to a certain point. Mankind does not advance in a straight line,--often a type is attained which is again lost (for instance, with all the efforts of three hundred years, we have not reached the men of the Renaissance again, and in addition to this we must not forget that the man of the Renaissance was already behind his brother of classical antiquity).

882.

The superiority of the Greek and the man of the Renaissance is recognised, but people would like to produce them without the conditions and causes of which they were the result.

883.

_"Purification of taste"_ can only be the result of the _strengthening_ of the type. Our society to-day represents only the cultivating systems, the cultivated man is _lacking._ The great _synthetic man,_ in whom the various forces for attaining a purpose are correctly harnessed together, is altogether wanting. The specimen we possess is the _multifarious_ man, the most interesting form of chaos that has ever existed: but _not_ the chaos _preceding_ the creation of the world, but that following it: _Goethe_ as the most beautiful expression of the type (_completely and utterly un-Olympian_!)[3]

[Footnote 3: The Germans always call Goethe the Olympian.--Tr.]

884.

Handel, Leibniz, Goethe, and Bismarck, are characteristic of the _strong German type._ They lived with equanimity, surrounded by contrasts. They were full of that agile kind of strength which cautiously avoids convictions and doctrines, by using the one as a weapon against the other, and reserving absolute freedom for themselves.

885.

Of this I am convinced, that if the rise of great and rare men had been made dependent upon the voices of the multitude (taking for granted, of course, that the latter knew the qualities which belong to greatness, and also the price that all greatness pays for its self-development), then there would never have been any such thing as a great man!