Theuniversal degeneracy of mankindto the level of the "man of the future"—as idealised by the socialisticfools and shallow-pates—this degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely gregarious animal (or as they call it, to a man of "free society"), this brutalising of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is undoubtedlypossible!He who has thought out this possibility to its ultimate conclusion knowsanotherloathing unknown to the rest of mankind—and perhaps also a newmission!130-131
Supposing ... that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be sceptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only be designated thereby—andnotthey themselves. With equal right they might call themselves critics; and assuredly they will be men of experiments.... They will besterner(and perhaps not always towards themselves only) ... they will not deal with the "truth" in order that it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them—they will rather have little faith in"truth"bringing with it such revels for the feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one says in their presence: "that thought elevates me, why should it not be true?" or; "that artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?" Perhaps they will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus rapturous, idealistic, feminine and hermaphroditic; and if any one could look into their inmost heart, he would not easily find therein the intention to reconcile "Christian sentiments" with "antique taste," or even with "modern parliamentarism" (the kind of reconciliation necessarily found even amongst philosophers in our very uncertain and consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters,will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of the future; they may even make a display thereof as their special adornment—nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on that account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that "philosophy itself is criticism and critical science—and nothing else whatever!"149-151
The real philosophers ... are commanders and law-givers;they say: "Thusshallit be." They determine first the Whither and the Why of mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical workers, and all subjugators of the past—they grasp at the future with a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" iscreating,their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is—Will to Tower....152
At present ... when throughout Europe the herding animal alone attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of right" can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong: I mean to say into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness—at present it belongs to the conception of "greatness" to be noble, to wish to be apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to live by personal initiative; and the philosopher will betray something of his own ideal when he asserts: "He shall be the greatest who can be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, and of superabundance of will;precisely this shall be calledgreatness:as diversified as can be entire, as ample as can be full."154-155
Morality as attitude is opposed to our taste nowadays. This isalsoan advance, as it was an advance in our fathers that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste....161
The practice of judging and condemning morally is the favourite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so....162
Whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained something for it—perhaps something from himself for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps in general to be more, or even feel himself "more."164
Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays ... let the psychologist have his ears open: through all the vanity, through all the noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note ofself-contempt.165
We are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the grand style, for the most spiritual festival-laughter and arrogance, for the transcendental height of supreme folly and Aristophanic ridicule of the world. Perhaps we are still discovering the domain of ourinventionjust here, the domain where even we can still be original, probably as parodists of the world's history and as God's Merry-Andrews,—perhaps, though nothing else of the present have a future, ourlaughteritself may have a future!168
The discipline of suffering, ofgreatsuffering—know ye not that it is onlythisdiscipline that has produced all the elevations of humanity hitherto?171
It is desirable that as few people as possible shouldreflect upon morals, and consequently it isverydesirable that morals should not some day become interesting!174
Not one of those ponderous, conscience-stricken herding-animals (who undertake to advocate the cause of egoism as conducive to the general welfare) wants to have any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the "general welfare" is no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all grasped, but is only a nostrum,—that what is fair to onemay notat all be fair to another, that the requirement of one morality for all is really a detriment to higher men, in short, that there is adistinction of rankbetween man and man, and consequently between morality and morality.175
That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that which operates agreeably in so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled ingredient of cruelty.177
Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair, men's gift—we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end, in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have considerable doubt as to whether woman reallydesiresenlightenment about herself—andcandesire it. If woman does not thereby seek a newornamentfor herself—I believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally feminine?—why, then, she wishes to make herself feared; perhaps she thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does notwanttruth—what does woman care for truth. From the very first nothing is more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth—her great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty.183
It betrays corruption of the instincts—apart from the fact that it betrays bad taste—when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de Staël, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby infavourof "woman as she is." Among men, these are the threecomicalwomen as they are—nothing more—and just the best involuntarycounter-argumentsagainst feminine emancipation and autonomy.184
Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is managed. Woman does not understand what foodmeans,and she insists on being cook. If woman had been a thinking creature, she should certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession of the healing art. Through bad female cooks—through the entire lack of reason in the kitchen—the development of mankind has been longest retarded and most interfered with,184-185
To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations: that is atypicalsign of shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at this dangerous spot—shallow in instinct—may generally be regarded as suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered: he will probably prove too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well as present, and will be unable to descend intoanyof the depths. On the other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, and has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and harshness, and easilyconfounded with them, can only think of woman as Orientals do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her mission therein....186-187
The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men as at present—this belongs to the tendency and fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old age—what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling....187
Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes "progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realises itself with terrible obviousness:woman retrogrades.Since the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe hasdeclinedin proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the "emancipation of woman," in so far as it is desired and demanded by women themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most womanly instincts. There isstupidityin this movement, an almost masculine stupidity, of which a well-reared woman—who is always a sensible woman—might be heartily ashamed.187-188
Every elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society—and so will it alwaysbe—a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other.223
The essential thing ... in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it shouldnotregard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as thesignificanceand highest justification thereof—that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who,for its sake,must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society isnotallowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higherexistence....225
Life itself isessentiallyappropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation....226
People now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which "the exploiting character" is to be absent:—that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society; it belongs to thenatureof the living being as a primary organic function; it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is precisely the Will to Life.226
In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together andconnected with one another, until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a radical distinction was brought to light. There ismaster-moralityandslave-morality;—I would at once add, however, that in all higher and mixed civilisations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation of the two moralities; but one finds still oftener the confusion and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed, sometimes their close juxtaposition—even in the same man, within one soul.227
The noble type of man regardshimselfas a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What is injurious to me is injurious in itself"; he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is acreatorof values. He honours whatever he recognises in himself: such morality is self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high tension, the conscientiousness of a wealth which would fain give and bestow:—the noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not—or scarcely—out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the superabundance of power. The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.229
A morality of the ruling class ... is ... especially foreign and irritating to present-day taste in the sternness of its principle that one has duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one, or "as the heart desires," and in any case "beyond good and evil": it is here that sympathy and similar sentimentscan have a place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and prolonged revenge—both only within the circle of equals,—artfulness in retaliation,raffinementof the idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies as outlets for the emotions of envy, quarrelsomeness, arrogance—in fact, in order to be a goodfriend:all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality.229-230
Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the seat of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and "evil":—power and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the "good" man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, a shade of depreciation—it may be slight and well-intentioned—at last attaches itself even to the "good" man of this morality; because, according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any case be thesafeman: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a little stupid,un bonhomme.Everywhere that slave-morality gains the ascendency, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations of the words "good" and "stupid."—A last fundamental difference: the desire forfreedom,the instinct for happiness and the refinements of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating.231
Aspeciesoriginates, and a type becomes established and strong in the long struggle with essentially constantunfavourableconditions. On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that species which receive superabundant nourishment, and in general a surplus of protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way to develop variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities (also in monstrous vices).234
I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as "we," other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves.240
Woman would like to believe that love can doeverything—it is thesuperstitionpeculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and deepest love is—he finds that it ratherdestroysthan saves!246
Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, among ourduties.249
A man strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindrance—or as a temporary resting-place.249
If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble self-control, to praise only where onedoes notagree....254
All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometimes—"commonplace."254-255
The noble soul has reverence for itself.256
A man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution,remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is amasterby nature—when such a man has sympathy, well,thatsympathy has value!259
I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their laughing—up to those who are capable ofgoldenlaughter.260
("Zur Genealogie der Moral") was written by Nietzsche primarily as an elaboration and elucidation of the philosophic points which were merely sketched in "Beyond Good and Evil." This former work had met with small success, and the critics, failing to understand its doctrines, read converse meanings in it. One critic hailed Nietzsche at once as an anarchist, and this review went far in actuating him in drawing up the three essays which comprise the present book. As will be remembered, several of Nietzsche's most important principles were stated and outlined in "Beyond Good and Evil," especially his doctrine of slave-morality and master-morality. Now he undertakes to develop this proposition, as well as many others which he set forth provisionally in his earlier work. This new polemic may be looked upon both as a completing of former works and as a further preparation for "The Will to Power." The book, a comparatively brief one (it contains barely 40,000 words), was written in a period of about two weeks during the early part of 1887. In July the manuscript was sent to the publisher, but was recalled for revisions and addenda; and most of Nietzsche's summer was devoted to correcting it. Later that same year the book appeared; and thereby its author acquired another friendly reader,Georg Brandes, to whom, more than to any other critic, Nietzsche owes his early recognition.
The style of "The Genealogy of Morals" is less aphoristic than any of the books which immediately preceded or followed it. Few new doctrines are propounded in it; and since it was for the most part an analytic commentary on what had gone before, its expositional needs were best met by Nietzsche's earlier style of writing. I have spoken before of the desultory and sporadic manner in which Nietzsche was necessitated to present his philosophy. Nowhere is his method of work better exemplified than in this new work. Nearly every one of his books overlaps another. Propositions are sketchily stated in one essay, which receive elucidation only in future volumes. "Beyond Good and Evil" was a commentary on "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; "The Genealogy of Morals" is a commentary on the newly propounded theses in "Beyond Good and Evil" and is in addition an elaboration of many of the ideas which took birth as far back as "Human, All-Too-Human." Out of "The Genealogy of Morals" in turn grew "The Antichrist" which dealt specifically with the theological phase of the former's discussion of general morals. And all of these books were but preparations for "The Will to Power." For this reason it is difficult to acquire a complete understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy unless one follows it consecutively and chronologically. The book at present under discussion is a most valuable one from an academic standpoint, for, while it may not set forth any new and important doctrines, it goes deep into the origins and history of moral concepts, and explains many of the important conclusions in Nietzsche's moral code. It brings more and more into prominence the mainpillars of his ethical system and explains at length the steps in the syllogism which led to his doctrine of master-morality. It ascertains the origin of the concept of sin, and describes the racial deterioration which has followed in the train of Christian ideals.
In many ways this book is the profoundest of all the writings Nietzsche left us. For the first time he separates theological and moral prejudices and traces them to different origins. This is one of the most important steps taken by him. By so doing he became an explorer of entirely new fields. The moral historians and psychologists who preceded him had considered moral precepts and Christian injunctions as stemming from the same source: their genealogies had led them to the same common spring. Nietzsche entered the search with new methods. He applied the philologie test to all moral values. He brought to his task, in addition to a historical sense, what he calls "an innate faculty of psychological discriminationpar excellence." He posed the following questions, and endeavoured to answer them by inquiring into the minutest aspects of historical conditions: "Under what conditions did Man invent for himself those judgments of value, 'good' and 'evil'?And what intrinsic value do they possess in themselves?Have they up to the present hindered or advanced human well-being"? Are they a symptom of the distress, impoverishment, and degeneration of Human Life? Or, conversely, is it in them that is manifested the fulness, the strength, and the will of Life, its courage, its self-confidence, its future?" In his research, Nietzsche first questioned the value of pity. He found it to be a symptom of modern civilisation—a quality held in contempt by the older philosophers, even by such widely dissimilarminds as Plato, Spinoza, La Rochefoucauld and Kant—but a quality given high place by the more modern thinkers. Despite the seemingly apparent isolation of the problem of pity-morality, Nietzsche saw that in truth it was a question which underlay all other moral propositions; and, using it as a ground-work for his research, he began to question the utility of all those values held as "good," to apply the qualities of the "good man" to the needs of civilisation, and to inquire into the results left upon the race by the "bad man."
So great was the misunderstanding which attached to his phrase, "beyond good and evil," and so persistently was this phrase interpreted in its narrow sense of "beyond good and bad," that he felt the necessity of drawing the line of distinction between these two diametrically opposed conceptions and of explaining the origin of each. His first essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is devoted to this task. At the outset he devotes considerable space criticising the methods and conclusions of former genealogists of morals, especially of the English psychologists who attribute anintrinsicmerit to altruism because at one time altruism possessed a utilitarian value. Herbert Spencer's theory that "good" is the same as "purposive" brings from Nietzsche a protest founded on the contention that because a thing was at one time useful, and therefore "good," it does not follow that the thing is goodin itself.By the etymology of the descriptive words of morality, Nietzsche traces the history of modern moral attributes through class distinctions to their origin in the instincts of the "nobles" and the "vulgarians." He shows the relationship between the Latinbonusand the "warrior," by derivingbonusfromduonus. Bellum,he shows, equalsduellumwhich equalsduen-lum,inwhich wordduonusis contained. Likewise, he points out the aristocratic origin of "happiness"—a quality arising from an abundance of energy and the consciousness of power.
"Good and evil," according to Nietzsche, is a sign of slave-morality; while "good and bad" represents the qualities in the master-morality. The one stands for the adopted qualities of the subservient races; the other embodies the natural functioning of dominating races. The origin of the "good" in these two instances is by no means the same. In the strong man "good" represented an entirely different condition than the "good" in the resentful and weak man; and these two "goods" arose out of different causes. The one was spontaneous and natural—inherent in the individual of strength: the other was a manufactured condition, an optional selection of qualities to soften and ameliorate the conditions of existence. "Evil" and "bad," by the same token, became attributes originating in widely separated sources. The "evil" of the weak man was any condition which worked against the manufactured ideals of goodness, which brought about unhappiness—it was the beginning of the conception of a slave-morality, a term applied to all enemies. The "bad" of the strong man was the concept which grew directly out of his feeling for "good," and which had no application to another individual. Thus the ideas of "good" and "bad" are directly inherited from the nobles of the race, and these ideas included within themselves the tendency toward establishing social distinctions.
The second section of "The Genealogy of Morals," called "'Guilt,' 'Bad Conscience,' and the Like," is another important document, the reading of which is almostimperative for the student who would understand the processes of thought which led to Nietzsche's philosophic conclusions. In this essay Nietzsche traces the origin of sin to debt, thereby disagreeing with all the genealogists of morals who preceded him. He starts with the birth of memory in man and with the corresponding will to forgetfulness, showing that out of these two mental qualities was born responsibility. Out of responsibility in turn grew the function of promising and the accepting of promises, which at once made possible between individuals the relationship of "debtor" and "creditor." As soon as this relationship was established, one man had rights over another. The creditor could exact payment from the debtor, either in the form of material equivalent or by inflicting an injury in which was contained the sensation of satisfaction. Thus the creditor had the right to punish in cases where actual repayment was impossible. And in this idea of punishment began not only class distinction but primitive law. Later, when the power to punish was transferred into the hands of the community, the law of contract came into existence. Here, says Nietzsche, we find the cradle of the whole moral world of the ideas of "guilt," "conscience," and "duty"; and adds, "Their commencement, like the commencement of all great things in the world, is thoroughly and continuously saturated in blood."
Carrying out the principle underlying the relationship of debtor and creditor we arrive at the formation of the community. In return for protection and for communal advantages the individual pledged his good behaviour. When he violated this contract with the community, the community, in the guise of the defrauded creditor, took its revenge, or exacted its payment, from the debtor, thecriminal. And, as was the case in early history, the community deprived the violator of future advantages and protection. The debtor was divested of all rights, even of mercy, for then there were no degrees in law-breaking. Primitive law was martial law. Says Nietzsche, "This shows why war itself (counting the sacrificial cult of war) has produced all the forms under which punishment has manifested itself in history." Later, as the community gathered strength, the offences of the individual debtors were looked upon as less serious. Out of its security grew leniency toward the offender: the penal code became mitigated, and, as in all powerful nations to-day, the criminal was protected. Only when there was a consciousness of weakness in a community did the acts of individual offenders take on an exaggerated seriousness, and under such conditions the law was consequently harshest. Thus, justice and the infliction of legal penalties are direct outgrowths of the primitive relation of debt between individuals. Herein we have the origin of guilt.
Nietzsche attempts an elaborate analysis of the history of punishment, in an effort to ascertain its true meaning, its relation to guilt and to the community, and its final effects on both the individual and society. It has been impossible to present the sequence of this analysis by direct excerpts from his own words, due to the close, synthetic manner in which he has made his research. Therefore I offer the following brief exposition of pages 88 to 99 inclusive, in which he examines the causes and effects of punishment. To begin with, Nietzsche disassociates the "origin" and the "end" of punishment, and regards them as two separate and distinct problems. He argues that the final utility of a thing, in the sense thatrevenge and deterrence are the final utilities of punishment, is in all cases opposed to the origin of that thing; that every force or principle is constantly being put to new purposes by forces greater than itself, thus making it impossible to determine its inception by the end for which it is used. Therefore the "function" of punishing was not conceived with a view to punishing, but may have been employed for any number of ends, according as a will to power has overcome that function and made use of it for its own purpose: in short; punishment, like any organ or custom or "thing," has passed through a series of new interpretations and adjustments and meanings—and isnota direct and logicalprogress asto an end.
Having established this point, Nietzsche endeavours to determine the utilisation to which the custom of punishment has been put—to ascertain the meaning which has been interpreted into it. He finds that even in modern times not one but many uses have been made of punishment, and that in ancient times so diverse have been the utilisations of punishment that it is impossible to define them all. In fact, one cannot determine theprecise reasonfor punishment. To emphasise this point, Nietzsche gives a long list of possible meanings. Taking up the more popularsupposedutilities of punishment at the present time—such as creating in the wrong-doer the consciousness of guilt, which is supposed to evolve into conscience and remorse—he shows wherein punishment fails in its object. Against this theory of the creation of remorse, he advances psychology and shows that, to the contrary, punishment numbs and hardens. He argues also that punishment for the purpose of making the wrong-doer conscious of the intrinsic reprehensibility of his crime, fails because the very act for which he ischastened is practised in the service of justice and is called "good." Eliminating thus thesupposedeffects of punishment, Nietzsche arrives at the conclusion (included in the excerpts at the end of this chapter) that punishment makes only for caution and secrecy, and is therefore detrimental.
In his analysis of the origin of the "bad conscience," Nietzsche lends himself to quotation. Therefore I have been able to present in his own words a fairresumeof the course pursued by him in his examination of the history of conscience. This particular branch of his research is carried into the formation of the "State" which, according to him, grew out of "a herd of blonde beasts." The older theory of the state, namely: that it originated in the adoption of a contract, is set aside as untenable when dealing with a peoples who possessed conquerors or masters. These masters, argues Nietzsche, had no need of contracts. By using the "bad conscience" as a ground for inquiry, the causes for the existence of altruism are shown to be included in the self-cruelty which followed in the wake of the instinct for freedom. (This last point is developed fully in the discussion of ascetic ideals which is found at the end of the book now under consideration.) Nietzsche traces the birth of deities back along the lines of credit and debt. First came the fear of ancestors. Then followed the obligation to ancestors. At length the sacrifice to ancestors marked the beginning of a conception of duty (debt) to the supernatural. The ancestors of powerful nations in time became heroes, and finally evolved into gods. Later monotheism came as a natural consequence, and God became the creditor. In the expiation of sin, as symbolised in the crucifixion of Christianity, we have this samerelationship of debtor and creditor carried out into a more complex form through the avenues of self-torture.
The most important essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is the last, called "What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?" Nietzsche examines this question in relation to the artist, to the philosopher, to the priest, and to the race generally. In his examination of the problem in regard to artists he uses Wagner as a basis of inquiry, comparing the two phases of Wagner's art—the Parsifalian and the ante-Parsifalian. Artists, asserts Nietzsche, need a support of constituted authority; they are unable to stand alone—"standing alone is opposed to their deepest instincts"—and so they make use of asceticism as a rampart, as building material, to give their work authority. In his application of the ascetic ideal to philosophers, Nietzsche presents the cases of Schopenhauer and Kant, and concludes that asceticism in such instances is used as an escape from torture—a means to recreation and happiness. With the philosopher the ideal of asceticism is not a denial of existence. Rather is it an affirmation of existence. It permits him freedom of the intellect. It relieves him of the numerous obligations of life. Furthermore, the philosophic spirit, in order to establish itself, found it necessary to disguise itself as "one of thepreviously fixedtypes of the contemplative man," as a priest or soothsayer. Only in such a religious masquerade was philosophy taken with any seriousness or reverence.
The history of asceticism in the priest I have been able to set forth with a certain degree of completeness in Nietzsche's own words. The priest was the sick physician who administered to the needs of a sick populace. His was the mission of mitigating suffering and of performingevery kind of consolation. Wherein he failed, says Nietzsche, was in not going to the source, the cause, of suffering, but in dealing merely with its manifestations. These manifestations were the result of physiological depressions which prevailed at intervals among portions of the population. These depressions were the outgrowth of diverse causes, such as long wars, emigration to unsuitable climates, wrong diet, miscegenation on a large scale, disease, etc. According to Nietzsche the cure for such physiological phenomena can be found only in the realm of moral psychology, for here the origin is considered and administered to by disciplinary systems grounded in true knowledge. But the method employed by the priest was far from scientific. He combated these depressions by reducing the consciousness of life itself to the lowest possible degree—that is, by a doctrine of asceticism, of self-abnegation, equanimity, self-hypnotism. By thus minimising the consciousness of life, these depressions took on more and more the aspect of normality. The effects of this treatment, however, were transient, for the starving of the physical desires and the abstinence from exercising the physical impulses paved the way for all manner of mental disorders, excesses and insanity. Herein lies Nietzsche's explanation for religious ecstasies, hallucinations, and sensual outbursts.
Another form of treatment devised by the ascetic priests for a depressed people gave birth to the "blessedness" which, under the Christian code, attaches to work. These priests attempted to turn the attention of the people from their suffering by the establishment of mechanical activity, namely: work, routine and obedience. The sick man forgot himself in the labour which had received sanctification. The priests also combated depression bypermitting pleasure through the creation and production of joy. That is, they set men to helping and comforting each other, by instilling in them the notion of brotherly love. Thereby the community mutually strengthened itself, and at the same time it reaped the joy of service which had been sanctioned by the priests. Out of this last method sprang many of the Christian virtues, especially those which benefit others rather than oneself.
Such methods as these—devitalisation, labour, brotherly love—are called by Nietzsche the "innocent" prescriptions in the fight against depression. The "guilty" ones are far different, and are embodied in the one method: the production of emotional excess. This, the priests understood, was the most efficacious manner in overcoming protracted depression and pain. Confronted by the query: By what means can this emotional excess be produced? they made use of "the whole pack of hounds that rage in the human kennel"—rage, fear, lust, revenge, hope, despair, cruelty and the like. And once these emotional excesses became established, the priests, when asked by the "patients" for a "cause" of their suffering, declared it to be within the man himself, in his own guiltiness. Thus was the sick man turned into a sinner. Here originated also the conception of suffering as astate of punishment,the fear of retribution, the iniquitous conscience, and the hope of redemption. Nietzsche goes further, and shows the racial and individual decadence which has followed in the train of this system of treatment. Dr. Oscar Levy says with justice that this last essay, considered in the light which it throws upon the attitude of the ecclesiast to the man of resentment and misfortune, "is one of the most valuable contributions to sacerdotal psychology."
EXCERPTS FROM "THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS"
The pathos of nobility and distance.... the chronic and despoticesprit de corpsand fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race coming into association with a meaner race, an "under race," this is the origin of the antitheses of good and bad.20
The knightly-aristocratic "values" are based on a careful cult of the physical, on a flowering, rich, and even effervescing healthiness, that goes considerably beyond what is necessary for maintaining life, on war, adventure, the chase, the dance, the tourney—on everything, in fact, which is contained in strong, free, and joyous action. The priestly aristocratic mode of valuation is—we have seen—based on other hypotheses: it is bad enough for this class when it is a question of war! Yet the priests are, as is notorious,the worst enemies—why? Because they are the weakest.29
The slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires objective stimuli to be of action at all—its action is fundamentally a reaction. The contrary is the case when we come to the aristocrat's system of values: it acts and grows spontaneously, it merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful and exultant "yes" to its own self....35
The aristocratic man conceives the root idea "good" spontaneously and straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material then creates for himself a concept of "bad"! This "bad" of aristocratic origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred—the former an imitation, an "extra," an additionalnuance; the latter, on the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the conception of a slave-morality—these two words "bad" and "evil," how great a difference do they mark in spite of the fact that they have an identical contrary in the idea "good."39
It is impossible not to recognise at the core of all these aristocratic races the beast of prey; the magnificentblonde brute,avidly rampant for spoil and victory; this hidden core needed an outlet from time to time, the beast must get loose again, must return into the wilderness—the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobility, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings, are all alike in this need. It is the aristocratic races who have left the idea "Barbarian" on all the tracks in which they have marched; nay, a consciousness of this very barbarianism, and even a pride in it, manifests itself even in their highest civilisation.40
What produces to-day our repulsion towards "man"?—for wesufferfrom "man," there is no doubt about it. It is not fear; it is rather that we have nothing more to fear from men; it is that the worm "man" is in the foreground and pullulates; it is that the "tame man," the wretched mediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider himself a goal and a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, a "higher man."....42-43
In the dwarfing and levelling of the European man lurksourgreatest peril, for it is this outlook which fatigues—we see to-day nothing which wishes to be greater, we surmise that the process is always still backwards, still backwards towards something more attenuated, more inoffensive, more cunning, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian.44
To require of strength that it shouldnotexpress itself as strength, that it should not be a wish to overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should express itself as strength. A quantum of force is just such a quantum of movement, will, action.45
The impotence which requites not, is turned to "goodness," craven baseness to meekness, submission to those whom one hates, to obedience (namely, obedience to one of whom they say that he ordered this submission—they call him God). The inoffensive character of the weak, the very cowardice in which he is rich, his standing at the door, his forced necessity of waiting, gain here fine names, such as "patience," which is also called "virtue"; not being able to avenge one's self, is called not wishing to avenge one's self, perhaps even forgiveness.48
They are miserable, there is no doubt about it, all these whisperers and counterfeiters in the corners, although they try to get warm by crouching close to each other, but they tell me that their misery is a favour and distinction given to them by God, just as one beats the dogs one likes best; that perhaps this misery is also a preparation, a probation, a training; that perhaps it is still more something which will one day be compensated and paid back with a tremendous interest in gold, nay in happiness. This they call "Blessedness."45-49
The twoopposing values"good and bad," "good and evil," have fought a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the world, and though indubitably the second value has been for a long time in the preponderance, there are not wanting places where the fortune of the fight is stillundecisive. It can almost be said that in the meanwhile the fight reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the meanwhile it has become more and more intense, and always more and more psychological; so that nowadays there is perhaps no more decisive mark of thehigher nature,of the more psychological nature, than to be in that sense self-contradictory, and to be actually still a battle-ground for those two opposites. The symbol of this fight, written in a writing which has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history up to the present time, is called "Rome against Judæa, Judæa against Rome." Hitherto there has been no greater event thanthatfight, the putting ofthatquestion,thatdeadly antagonism. Rome found in the Jew the incarnation of the unnatural, as though it were its diametrically opposed monstrosity, and in Rome the Jew was held to beconvicted of hatredof the whole human race: and rightly so, in so far as it is right to link the well-being and the future of the human race to the unconditional mastery of the aristocratic values, of the Roman values. What, conversely, did the Jews feel against Rome? One can surmise it from a thousand symptoms, but it is sufficient to carry one's mind back to the Johannian Apocalypse, that most obscene of all the written outbursts, which has revenge on its conscience.53-54
Beyond Good and Evil—at any rate that is not the same as "Beyond Good and Bad."57
The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege ofresponsibility,the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over himself and over fate, has sunk right down to his innermost depths, and has become an instinct, a dominating instinct—what name will he give to it, tothis dominating instinct if he needs to have a word for it? But there is no doubt about it—the sovereign man calls it hisconscience.65
Have these current genealogists of morals ever allowed themselves to have even the vaguest notion, for instance, that the cardinal moral idea of "ought" originates from the very material idea of "owe"? Or that punishment developed as aretaliationabsolutely independently of any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or determination of the will?—And this to such an extent, that ahighdegree of civilisation was always first necessary for the animal man to begin to make those much more primitive distinctions of "intentional," "negligent," "accidental," "responsible," and their contraries, and apply them in the assessing of punishment. That idea—"the wrong-doer deserves punishmentbecausehe might have acted otherwise," in spite of the fact that it is nowadays so cheap, obvious, natural, and inevitable, and that it has had to serve as an illustration of the way in which the sentiment of justice appeared on earth is in point of fact an exceedingly late, and even refined form of human judgment and inference; the placing of this idea back at the beginning of the world is simply a clumsy violation of the principles of primitive psychology.69
The sight of suffering does one good, the infliction of suffering does one more good—this is a hard maxim, but none the less a fundamental maxim, old, powerful, and "human, all-too-human"; one, moreover, to which perhaps even the apes as well would subscribe: for it is said that in inventing bizarre cruelties they are giving abundant proof of their future humanity, to which, as it were, they are playing the prelude. Without cruelty, no feast:so teaches the oldest and longest history of man—and in punishment too is there so much of thefestive.75
The darkening of the heavens over man has always increased in proportion to the growth of man's shamebefore man.The tired pessimistic outlook, the mistrust of the riddle of life, the icy negation of disgusted ennui, all those are not the signs of themost evilage of the human race: much rather do they come first to the light of day, as the swamp-flowers, which they are, when the swamp to which they belong comes into existence—I mean the diseased refinement and moralisation, thanks to which the "animal man" has at last learnt to be ashamed of all his instincts.75
The curve of human sensibilities to pain seems indeed to sink in an extraordinary and almost sudden fashion, as soon as one has passed the upper ten thousand or ten millions of over-civilised humanity, and I personally have no doubt that, by comparison with one painful night passed by one single hysterical chit of a cultured woman, the suffering of all the animals taken together who have been put to the question of the knife, so as to give scientific answers, are simply negligible.76-77
Man ... arrived at the great generalisation "everything has its price,allcan be paid for," the oldest and most naïve moral canon ofjusticethe beginning of all "kindness," of all "equity," of all "goodwill," of all "objectivity" in the world.80
The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls itself—Grace!it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of the strongest, better still, their super-law.83-84
The aggressive man has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more aristocratic, and alsofreeroutlook,thebetterconscience. On the other hand, we already surmise who it really is that has on his conscience the invention of the "bad conscience,"—the resentful man!86
To talk of intrinsic right and intrinsic wrong is absolutely nonsensical; intrinsically, an injury, an oppression, an exploitation, an annihilation can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life isessentially(that is, in its cardinal functions) something which functions by injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and annihilating, and is absolutely inconceivable without such a character.88
Evildoers have throughout thousands of years felt when overtaken by punishmentexactly like Spinoza,on the subject of their "offence": "here is something which went wrong contrary to my anticipation,notI ought not to have done this."—They submitted themselves to punishment, just as one submits one's self to a disease, to a misfortune, or to death, with that stubborn and resigned fatalism which gives the Russians, for instance, even nowadays, the advantage over us Westerners, in the handling of life. If at that period there was a critique of action, the criterion was prudence: the realeffectof punishment is unquestionably chiefly to be found in a sharpening of the sense of prudence, in a lengthening of the memory, in a will to adopt more of a policy of caution, suspicion, and secrecy; in the recognition that there are many things which are unquestionably beyond one's capacity; in a kind of improvement in self-criticism. The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires: so it is that punishmenttamesman, but does not make him "better"—it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert the contrary.99
All instincts which do not find a vent without,turn inwards—this is what I mean by the growing "internalisation" of man: consequently we have the first growth in man, of what subsequently was called his soul. The whole inner world, originally as thin as if it had been stretched between two layers of skin, burst apart and expanded proportionately, and obtained depth, breadth, and height, when man's external outlet becameobstructed.These terrible bulwarks, with which the social organisation protected itself against the old instincts of freedom (punishments belong pre-eminently to these bulwarks), brought it about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man became turned backwardsagainst man himself.Enmity, cruelty, the delight in persecution, in surprises, change, destruction—the turning all these instincts against their own possessors: this is the origin of the "bad conscience." It was man, who, lacking external enemies and obstacles, and imprisoned as he was in the oppressive narrowness and monotony of custom, in his own impatience lacerated, persecuted, gnawed, frightened, and ill-treated himself; it was this animal in the hands of the tamer, which beat itself against the bars of its cage; it was this being who, pining and yearning for that desert home of which it had been deprived, was compelled to create out of its own self, an adventure, a torture-chamber, a hazardous and perilous desert—it was this fool, this homesick and desperate prisoner—who invented the "bad conscience."100-101
A herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters, which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising power pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers possibly tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad. Such is the origin ofthe "State." That fantastic theory that makes it begin with a contract is, I think, disposed of. He who can command, he who is a master by "nature," he who comes on the scene forceful in deed and gesture—what has he to do with contracts? Such beings defy calculation, they come like fate, without cause, reason, notice, excuse, they are there like the lightning is there, too terrible, too sudden, too convincing, too "different," to be personally even hated. Their work is an instinctive creating and impressing of forms, they are the most involuntary, unconscious artists that there are....103
It is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as avalue.105
The feeling of owing a debt to the deity has grown continuously for several centuries, always in the same proportion in which the idea of God and the consciousness of God have grown and become exalted among mankind. (The whole history of ethnic fights, victories, reconciliations, amalgamations, everything, in fact, which precedes the eventual classing of all the social elements in each great race synthesis, are mirrored in the hotch-potch genealogy of their gods, in the legends of their fights, victories, and reconciliations, Progress towards universal empires invariably means progress towards universal deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent nobility, always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.) The appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time, has for that very reason brought equally into the world the record amount of guilt consciousness.109
This is a kind of madness of the will in the sphere of psychological cruelty which is absolutely unparalleled:—man'swillto find himself guilty and blameworthy to the point of inexpiability, hiswillto think of himself as punished, without the punishment ever being able to balance the guilt, hiswillto infect and to poison the fundamental basis of the universe with the problem of punishment and guilt, in order to cut off once and for all any escape out of this labyrinth of "fixed ideas," his will for rearing an ideal—that of the "holy God"—face to face with which he can have tangible proof of his own unworthiness. Alas for this mad melancholy beast man!112-113
What is the meaning of ascetic ideals? In artists, nothing, or too much; in philosophers and scholars, a kind of "flair" and instinct for the conditions most favourable to advanced intellectualism; in women, at best anadditionalseductive fascination, a littlemorbidezzaon a fine piece of flesh, the angelhood of a fat, pretty animal; in physiological failures and whiners (in themajorityof mortals), an attempt to pose as "too good" for this world, a holy form of debauchery, their chief weapon, in the battle with lingering pain and ennui; in priests, the actual priestly faith, their best engine of power, and also the supreme authority for power; in saints, finally a pretext for hibernation, theirnovissima gloria cupido,their peace in nothingness ("God"), their form of madness.121
All good things were once bad things; from every original sin has grown an original virtue. Marriage, for example, seemed for a long time a sin against the rights of the community; a man formerly paid a fine for the insolence of claiming one woman to himself.144-145
The soft, benevolent yielding, sympathetic feelings—eventually valued so highly that they almost become"intrinsic values," were for a very long time actually despised by their possessors; gentleness was then a subject for shame, just as hardness is now.145
The ascetic ideal springs from the prophylactic and self-preservative instincts which mark a decadent life,which seeks by every means in its power to maintain its position and fight for its existence; it points to a partial physiological depression and exhaustion, against which the most profound and intact life-instincts fight ceaselessly with new weapons and discoveries. The ascetic ideal is such a weapon: its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine—life struggles in it and through it with death andagainstdeath; the ascetic ideal is a dodge for thepreservationof life.154
The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish for an existence of another kind, an existence on another plane,—he is, in fact, the highest point of this wish, its official ecstasy and passion: but it is the verypowerof this wish which is the fetter that binds him here; it is just that which makes him into a tool that must labour to create more favourable conditions for earthly existence, for existence on the human plane—it is with this verypowerthat he keeps the whole herd of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates,sufferers from themselvesof every kind, fast to existence, while he as the herdsman goes instinctively on in front.154-155
Thesickare the great danger of man,notthe evil,notthe "beasts of prey." They who are from the outset botched, oppressed, broken, those are they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the life beneath the feet of man, who instil the most dangerous venom and scepticism into our trust in life, in man, in ourselves.157
Preventing the sick making the healthy sick ... this ought to be our supreme object in the world—but for this it is above all essential that the healthy should remainseparatedfrom the sick, that they should even guard themselves from the look of the sick, that they should not even associate with the sick. Or may it, perchance, be their mission to be nurses or doctors? But they could not mistake or disowntheirmission more grossly—the highermustnot degrade itself to be the tool of the lower, the pathos of distance must to all eternity keep their missions also separate. The right of the happy to existence, the right of bells with a full tone over the discordant cracked bells, is verily a thousand times greater: they alone are thesuretiesof the future, they alone areboundto man's future.160-161
The ascetic priest must be accepted by us as the predestined saviour, herdsman, and champion of the sick herd: thereby do we first understand his awful historic mission.162
"I suffer: it must be somebody's fault"—so thinks every sick sheep. But his herdsman, the ascetic priest, says to him, "Quite so, my sheep, it must be the fault of some one; but thou thyself art that some one, it is all the fault of thyself alone—it is the fault of thyself alone against thyself":that is bold enough, false enough, but one thing is at least attained; thereby, as I have said, the course of resentment is—diverted.165
All sick and diseased people strive instinctively after a herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of oppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this instinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct of weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the priests which hasorganised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural necessity the strong strive as much forisolationas the weak forunion:when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an aggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power, much against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter, on the contrary, range themselves together with positivedelightin such a muster—their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the instincts of the "born master" (that is the solitary beast-of-prey species of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation.176-177
The keynote by which the ascetic priest was enabled to get every kind of agonising and ecstatic music to play on the fibres of the human soul—was, as every one knows, the exploitation of the feeling of"guilt."182
The ascetic ideal and its sublime moral cult, this most ingenious, reckless, and perilous systématisation of all methods of emotional excess, is writ large in a dreadful and unforgettable fashion on the whole history of man, and unfortunately not only on history. I was scarcely able to put forward any other element which attacked thehealthand race efficiency of Europeans with more destructive power than did this ideal; it can be dubbed, without exaggeration,the real fatalityin the history of the health of the European man.186-187
The ascetic ideal has corrupted not only health and taste, there are also third, fourth, fifth, and sixth things which it has corrupted—I shall take care not to go through the catalogue (when should I get to the end?).190
The periods in a nation in which the learned man comes into prominence; they are the periods of exhaustion, often of sunset, of decay—the effervescing strength, the confidence of life, the confidence in the future are nomore. The preponderance of the mandarins never signifies any good, any more than does the advent of democracy, or arbitration instead of war, equal rights for women, the religion of pity, and all the other symptoms of declining life.200
The ascetic ideal simply means this: that somethingwas lacking,that a tremendousvoidencircled man—he did not know how to justify himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, hesufferedfrom the problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was in the main adiseasedanimal; but his problem was not suffering itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, "To what purposedo we suffer?" Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured to suffering, doesnotrepudiate suffering in itself: hewillsit, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, apurposeof suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over humanity—and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning!It was up till then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; the ascetic ideal was in that connection the"faute de mieux" par excellencethat existed at that time. In that ideal sufferingfound an explanation;the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation—there is no doubt about it—brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering under the perspective ofguilt;but in spite of all that—man wassavedthereby, he hada meaning,and from henceforth was no more like a leaf in the wind, a shuttlecock, of chance, of nonsense, he could now "will" something—absolutely immaterial to what end, to what purpose, with that means he wished:the will itself was saved.It is absolutely impossible to disguisewhatin point of fact is made clear by every complete will that has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even desiring—all this means—let us have the courage to grasp it—a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remainsa will!—and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning—man will wishNothingnessrather than not wishat all.210-211