Part 7

_Culture_ versus _Civilisation._--The culminating stages of culture and civilisation lie apart: one must not be led astray as regards the fundamental antagonism existing between culture and civilisation. From the moral standpoint, great periods 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_ ("civilisation") have always been periods of intolerance towards the most intellectual and most audacious natures. Civilisation desires something 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 civilisation _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 Rousseau 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 transvaluation 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 political 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 conclusion of "modern ideas" and their latent anarchy: but in the genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming resolutions 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 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 unexhausted 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 worth while 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 discouraged. 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 enlightenment--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. _Inwardly_: 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 preservation 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 Abbé Galiani says somewhere: "_La prévoyance est la cause des guerres actuelles de l'Europe. Si l'on voulait se donner la peine de ne rien prévoir, tout le monde serait tranquille, et je ne crois pas qu'on serait plus malheureux parce qu'on ne ferait pas 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.

(1) Fundamental contradiction between civilisation 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 _conditions_ 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 aristocratic values of the _ancient world). _

SECOND BOOK.

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 impoverish_ himself and make himself feel wretched! Hitherto, this has been his greatest disinterestedness, that he admired and worshipped, and knew how to conceal from himself that _he_ it was who had created what he admired.

1. CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS.

135.

_The origin of religion._--Just as the illiterate man of to-day 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 phenomena were interpreted by man by means of personal entities. Those conditions of his soul which seemed strange, overwhelming, and rapturous, 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 resignation, 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 "_altération de la personalité._" 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 conceived them as "passive," as "imposed upon him from outside": Religion is the offshoot of a _doubt_ concerning the entity of the person, an _altération_ of the personality: in so far as everything 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-abasement, 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 relationship. 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 honour, 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 honour 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, impassibility, 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, victorious 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: (1) 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 "disbelievers" (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 philosophers go?--The question here is, what hypotheses 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.