05. CHAPTER V
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF MORALS
186. The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as
subtle, belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the "Science
of Morals" belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and
coarse-fingered:--an interesting contrast, which sometimes
becomes incarnate and obvious in the very person of a moralist.
Indeed, the expression, "Science of Morals" is, in respect to
what is designated thereby, far too presumptuous and counter to
GOOD taste,--which is always a foretaste of more modest
expressions. One ought to avow with the utmost fairness WHAT is
still necessary here for a long time, WHAT is alone proper for
the present: namely, the collection of material, the
comprehensive survey and classification of an immense domain of
delicate sentiments of worth, and distinctions of worth, which
live, grow, propagate, and perish--and perhaps attempts to give a
clear idea of the recurring and more common forms of these living
crystallizations--as preparation for a THEORY OF TYPES of
morality. To be sure, people have not hitherto been so modest.
All the philosophers, with a
pedantic and ridiculous seriousness,
demanded of themselves something very much higher, more
pretentious, and ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with
morality as a science: they wanted to GIVE A BASIC to morality--
and every philosopher hitherto has believed that he has given it
a basis; morality itself, however, has been regarded as something
"given." How far from their awkward pride was the seemingly
insignificant problem--left in dust and decay--of a description
of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands and
senses could hardly be fine enough for it! It was precisely owing
to moral philosophers' knowing the moral facts imperfectly, in an
arbitrary epitome, or an accidental abridgement--perhaps as the
morality of their environment, their position, their church,
their Zeitgeist, their climate and zone--it was precisely because
they were badly instructed with regard to nations, eras, and past
ages, and were by no means eager to know about these matters,
that they did not even come in sight of the real problems of
morals--problems which only disclose themselves by a comparison
of MANY kinds of morality. In every "Science of Morals" hitherto,
strange as it may sound, the problem of morality itself has been
OMITTED: there has been no suspicion that there was anything
problematic there! That which philosophers called "giving a basis
to morality," and endeavoured to realize, has, when seen in a
right light, proved merely a learned form of good FAITH in
prevailing morality, a new means of its EXPRESSION, consequently
just a matter-of-fact within the sphere of a definite morality,
yea, in its ultimate
motive, a sort of denial that it is LAWFUL
for this morality to be called in question--and in any case the
reverse of the testing, analyzing, doubting, and vivisecting of
this very faith. Hear, for instance, with what innocence--almost
worthy of honour--Schopenhauer represents his own task, and draw
your conclusions concerning the scientificness of a "Science"
whose latest master still talks in the strain of children and old
wives: "The principle," he says (page 136 of the Grundprobleme
der Ethik), [Footnote: Pages 54-55 of Schopenhauer's Basis of
Morality, translated by Arthur B. Bullock, M.A. (1903).] "the
axiom about the purport of which all moralists are PRACTICALLY
agreed: neminem laede, immo omnes quantum potes juva--is REALLY
the proposition which all moral teachers strive to establish,
. . . the REAL basis of ethics which has been sought, like
the philosopher's stone, for centuries."--The difficulty of
establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be great--it
is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his
efforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false
and sentimental this proposition is, in a world whose essence is
Will to Power, may be reminded that Schopenhauer, although a
pessimist, ACTUALLY--played the flute . . . daily after dinner:
one may read about the matter in his biography. A question by the
way: a pessimist, a repudiator of God and of the world, who MAKES
A HALT at morality--who assents to morality, and plays the flute
to laede-neminem morals, what? Is that really--a pessimist?
187. Apart from the value of such assertions as "there is a
categorical imperative in us," one can always ask: What does such
an assertion indicate about him who makes it? There are systems
of morals which are meant to justify their author in the eyes of
other people; other systems of morals are meant to tranquilize
him, and make him self-satisfied; with other systems he wants to
crucify and humble himself, with others he wishes to take revenge,
with others to conceal himself, with others to glorify himself and
gave superiority and distinction,--this system of morals helps its
author to forget, that system makes him, or something of him,
forgotten, many a moralist would like to exercise power and
creative arbitrariness over mankind, many another, perhaps, Kant
especially, gives us to understand by his morals that "what is
estimable in me, is that I know how to obey--and with you it SHALL
not be otherwise than with me!" In short, systems of morals are
only a SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS.
188. In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a
sort of tyranny against "nature" and also against "reason", that
is, however, no objection, unless one should again decree by some
system of morals, that all kinds of tyranny and unreasonableness
are unlawful What is essential and invaluable in every system of
morals, is that it is a long constraint. In order to understand
Stoicism, or Port Royal, or Puritanism, one should remember
the
constraint under which every language has attained to strength
and freedom--the metrical constraint, the tyranny of rhyme and
rhythm. How much trouble have the poets and orators of every
nation given themselves!--not excepting some of the prose writers
of today, in whose ear dwells an inexorable conscientiousness--
"for the sake of a folly," as utilitarian bunglers say, and
thereby deem themselves wise--"from submission to arbitrary
laws," as the anarchists say, and thereby fancy themselves
"free," even free-spirited. The singular fact remains, however,
that everything of the nature of freedom, elegance, boldness,
dance, and masterly certainty, which exists or has existed,
whether it be in thought itself, or in administration, or in
speaking and persuading, in art just as in conduct, has only
developed by means of the tyranny of such arbitrary law, and in
all seriousness, it is not at all improbable that precisely this
is "nature" and "natural"--and not laisser-aller! Every artist
knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his
"most natural" condition, the free arranging, locating,
disposing, and constructing in the moments of "inspiration"--and
how strictly and delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which,
by their very rigidness and precision, defy all formulation by
means of ideas (even the most stable idea has, in comparison
therewith, something floating, manifold, and ambiguous in it).
The essential thing "in heaven and in earth" is, apparently (to
repeat it once more), that there should be long OBEDIENCE in the
same direction, there thereby results, and has always resulted in
the long run, something which has made life worth living; for
instance, virtue, art, music, dancing, reason, spirituality--
anything whatever that is transfiguring, refined, foolish, or
divine. The long bondage of the spirit, the distrustful
constraint in the communicability of ideas, the discipline which
the thinker imposed on himself to think in accordance with the
rules of a church or a court, or conformable to Aristotelian
premises, the persistent spiritual will to interpret everything
that happened according to a Christian scheme, and in every
occurrence to rediscover and justify the Christian God:--all this
violence, arbitrariness, severity, dreadfulness, and
unreasonableness, has proved itself the disciplinary means
whereby the European spirit has attained its strength, its
remorseless curiosity and subtle mobility; granted also that much
irrecoverable strength and spirit had to be stifled, suffocated,
and spoilt in the process (for here, as everywhere, "nature"
shows herself as she is, in all her extravagant and INDIFFERENT
magnificence, which is shocking, but nevertheless noble). That
for centuries European thinkers only thought in order to prove
something-nowadays, on the contrary, we are suspicious of every
thinker who "wishes to prove something"--that it was always
settled beforehand what WAS TO BE the result of their strictest
thinking, as it was perhaps in the Asiatic astrology of former
times, or as it is still at the present day in the innocent,
Christian-moral explanation of immediate personal events "for the
glory of God," or "for the good of the soul":--this tyranny, this
arbitrariness, this severe and magnificent stupidity, has
EDUCATED
the spirit; slavery, both in the coarser and the finer
sense, is apparently an indispensable means even of spiritual
education and discipline. One may look at every system of morals
in this light: it is "nature" therein which teaches to hate the
laisser-aller, the too great freedom, and implants the need for
limited horizons, for immediate duties--it teaches the NARROWING
OF PERSPECTIVES, and thus, in a certain sense, that stupidity is
a condition of life and development. "Thou must obey some one,
and for a long time; OTHERWISE thou wilt come to grief, and lose
all respect for thyself"--this seems to me to be the moral
imperative of nature, which is certainly neither "categorical,"
as old Kant wished (consequently the "otherwise"), nor does it
address itself to the individual (what does nature care for the
individual!), but to nations, races, ages, and ranks; above all,
however, to the animal "man" generally, to MANKIND.
189. Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle: it
was a master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and begloom
Sunday to such an extent that the Englishman unconsciously
hankers for his week--and work-day again:--as a kind of cleverly
devised, cleverly intercalated FAST, such as is also frequently
found in the ancient world (although, as is appropriate in
southern nations, not precisely with respect to work). Many kinds
of fasts are necessary; and wherever powerful influences and
habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary days are
appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to
hunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole generations
and epochs, when they show themselves infected with any moral
fanaticism, seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and
fasting, during which an impulse learns to humble and submit
itself--at the same time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself;
certain philosophical sects likewise admit of a similar
interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst of Hellenic
culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged with
Aphrodisiacal odours).--Here also is a hint for the explanation
of the paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period
of European history, and in general only under the pressure of
Christian sentiments, that the sexual impulse sublimated into
love (amour-passion).
190. There is something in the morality of Plato which does not
really belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy,
one might say, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he
himself was too noble. "No one desires to injure himself, hence
all evil is done unwittingly. The evil man inflicts injury on
himself; he would not do so, however, if he knew that evil is
evil. The evil man, therefore, is only evil through error; if one
free him from error one will necessarily make him--good."--This
mode of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who perceive only the
unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and practically judge that
"it is STUPID to do wrong"; while they accept "good" as identical
with "useful and pleasant,"
without further thought. As regards
every system of utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it
has the same origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err.--
Plato did all he could to interpret something refined and noble
into the tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret
himself into them--he, the most daring of all interpreters, who
lifted the entire Socrates out of the street, as a popular theme
and song, to exhibit him in endless and impossible modifications
--namely, in all his own disguises and multiplicities. In jest,
and in Homeric language as well, what is the Platonic Socrates,
if not-- [Greek words inserted here.]
191. The old theological problem of "Faith" and "Knowledge," or
more plainly, of instinct and reason--the question whether, in
respect to the valuation of things, instinct deserves more
authority than rationality, which wants to appreciate and act
according to motives, according to a "Why," that is to say, in
conformity to purpose and utility--it is always the old moral
problem that first appeared in the person of Socrates, and had
divided men's minds long before Christianity. Socrates himself,
following, of course, the taste of his talent--that of a
surpassing dialectician--took first the side of reason; and, in
fact, what did he do all his life but laugh at the awkward
incapacity of the noble Athenians, who were men of instinct, like
all noble men, and could never give satisfactory answers
concerning the motives of their actions? In the end, however,
though silently and secretly, he laughed also at himself: with
his finer conscience and introspection, he found in himself the
same difficulty and incapacity. "But why"--he said to himself--
"should one on that account separate oneself from the instincts!
One must set them right, and the reason ALSO--one must follow the
instincts, but at the same time persuade the reason to support
them with good arguments." This was the real FALSENESS of that
great and mysterious ironist; he brought his conscience up to the
point that he was satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in
fact, he perceived the irrationality in the moral judgment.--
Plato, more innocent in such matters, and without the craftiness
of the plebeian, wished to prove to himself, at the expenditure
of all his strength--the greatest strength a philosopher had ever
expended--that reason and instinct lead spontaneously to one
goal, to the good, to "God"; and since Plato, all theologians and
philosophers have followed the same path--which means that in
matters of morality, instinct (or as Christians call it, "Faith,"
or as I call it, "the herd") has hitherto triumphed. Unless one
should make an exception in the case of Descartes, the father of
rationalism (and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution),
who recognized only the authority of reason: but reason is only a
tool, and Descartes was superficial.
192. Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds
in its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and
commonest processes of
all "knowledge and cognizance": there, as
here, the premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid
will to "belief," and the lack of distrust and patience are first
developed--our senses learn late, and never learn completely, to
be subtle, reliable, and cautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes
find it easier on a given occasion to produce a picture already
often produced, than to seize upon the divergence and novelty of
an impression: the latter requires more force, more "morality."
It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything
new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear another language
spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds into words
with which we are more familiar and conversant--it was thus, for
example, that the Germans modified the spoken word ARCUBALISTA
into ARMBRUST (cross-bow). Our senses are also hostile and averse
to the new; and generally, even in the "simplest" processes of
sensation, the emotions DOMINATE--such as fear, love, hatred, and
the passive emotion of indolence.--As little as a reader nowadays
reads all the single words (not to speak of syllables) of a page
--he rather takes about five out of every twenty words at random,
and "guesses" the probably appropriate sense to them--just as
little do we see a tree correctly and completely in respect to
its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so much
easier to fancy the chance of a tree. Even in the midst of the
most remarkable experiences, we still do just the same; we
fabricate the greater part of the experience, and can hardly be
made to contemplate any event, EXCEPT as "inventors" thereof.
All
this goes to prove that from our fundamental nature and from
remote ages we have been--ACCUSTOMED TO LYING. Or, to express it
more politely and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly--one
is much more of an artist than one is aware of.--In an animated
conversation, I often see the face of the person with whom I am
speaking so clearly and sharply defined before me, according to
the thought he expresses, or which I believe to be evoked in his
mind, that the degree of distinctness far exceeds the STRENGTH of
my visual faculty--the delicacy of the play of the muscles and of
the expression of the eyes MUST therefore be imagined by me.
Probably the person put on quite a different expression, or none
at all.
193. Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: but also contrariwise.
What we experience in dreams, provided we experience it often,
pertains at last just as much to the general belongings of our
soul as anything "actually" experienced; by virtue thereof we are
richer or poorer, we have a requirement more or less, and
finally, in broad daylight, and even in the brightest moments of
our waking life, we are ruled to some extent by the nature of our
dreams. Supposing that someone has often flown in his dreams, and
that at last, as soon as he dreams, he is conscious of the power
and art of flying as his privilege and his peculiarly enviable
happiness; such a person, who believes that on the slightest
impulse, he can actualize all sorts of curves and angles, who
knows the sensation of a certain divine levity, an
"upwards"
without effort or constraint, a "downwards" without descending or
lowering--without TROUBLE!--how could the man with such dream-
experiences and dream-habits fail to find "happiness" differently
coloured and defined, even in his waking hours! How could he
fail--to long DIFFERENTLY for happiness? "Flight," such as is
described by poets, must, when compared with his own "flying," be
far too earthly, muscular, violent, far too "troublesome" for
him.
194. The difference among men does not manifest itself only in
the difference of their lists of desirable things--in their
regarding different good things as worth striving for, and being
disagreed as to the greater or less value, the order of rank, of
the commonly recognized desirable things:--it manifests itself
much more in what they regard as actually HAVING and POSSESSING a
desirable thing. As regards a woman, for instance, the control
over her body and her sexual gratification serves as an amply
sufficient sign of ownership and possession to the more modest
man; another with a more suspicious and ambitious thirst for
possession, sees the "questionableness," the mere apparentness of
such ownership, and wishes to have finer tests in order to know
especially whether the woman not only gives herself to him, but
also gives up for his sake what she has or would like to have--
only THEN does he look upon her as "possessed." A third, however,
has not even here got to the limit of his distrust and his desire
for possession: he asks himself whether the woman,
when she gives
up everything for him, does not perhaps do so for a phantom of
him; he wishes first to be thoroughly, indeed, profoundly well
known; in order to be loved at all he ventures to let himself be
found out. Only then does he feel the beloved one fully in his
possession, when she no longer deceives herself about him, when
she loves him just as much for the sake of his devilry and
concealed insatiability, as for his goodness, patience, and
spirituality. One man would like to possess a nation, and he
finds all the higher arts of Cagliostro and Catalina suitable for
his purpose. Another, with a more refined thirst for possession,
says to himself: "One may not deceive where one desires to
possess"--he is irritated and impatient at the idea that a mask
of him should rule in the hearts of the people: "I must,
therefore, MAKE myself known, and first of all learn to know
myself!" Among helpful and charitable people, one almost always
finds the awkward craftiness which first gets up suitably him who
has to be helped, as though, for instance, he should "merit"
help, seek just THEIR help, and would show himself deeply
grateful, attached, and subservient to them for all help. With
these conceits, they take control of the needy as a property,
just as in general they are charitable and helpful out of a
desire for property. One finds them jealous when they are crossed
or forestalled in their charity. Parents involuntarily make
something like themselves out of their children--they call that
"education"; no mother doubts at the bottom of her heart that the
child she has borne is thereby her property, no father hesitates
about
his right to HIS OWN ideas and notions of worth. Indeed, in
former times fathers deemed it right to use their discretion
concerning the life or death of the newly born (as among the
ancient Germans). And like the father, so also do the teacher,
the class, the priest, and the prince still see in every new
individual an unobjectionable opportunity for a new possession.
The consequence is . . .
195. The Jews--a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the
whole ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the
nations," as they themselves say and believe--the Jews performed
the miracle of the inversion of valuations, by means of which
life on earth obtained a new and dangerous charm for a couple of
millenniums. Their prophets fused into one the expressions
"rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent," "sensual," and for the
first time coined the word "world" as a term of reproach. In this
inversion of valuations (in which is also included the use of the
word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the
significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with THEM
that the SLAVE-INSURRECTION IN MORALS commences.
196. It is to be INFERRED that there are countless dark bodies
near the sun--such as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this
is an allegory; and the psychologist of morals reads the whole
star-writing
merely as an allegorical and symbolic language in
which much may be unexpressed.
197. The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Caesar
Borgia) are fundamentally misunderstood, "nature" is
misunderstood, so long as one seeks a "morbidness" in the
constitution of these healthiest of all tropical monsters and
growths, or even an innate "hell" in them--as almost all
moralists have done hitherto. Does it not seem that there is a
hatred of the virgin forest and of the tropics among moralists?
And that the "tropical man" must be discredited at all costs,
whether as disease and deterioration of mankind, or as his own
hell and self-torture? And why? In favour of the "temperate
zones"? In favour of the temperate men? The "moral"? The
mediocre?--This for the chapter: "Morals as Timidity."
198. All the systems of morals which address themselves with a
view to their "happiness," as it is called--what else are they
but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of DANGER
from themselves in which the individuals live; recipes for their
passions, their good and bad propensities, insofar as such have
the Will to Power and would like to play the master; small and
great expediencies and elaborations, permeated with the musty
odour of old family medicines and old-wife wisdom; all of them
grotesque and absurd in their form--because they address
themselves to "all,"
because they generalize where generalization
is not authorized; all of them speaking unconditionally, and
taking themselves unconditionally; all of them flavoured not
merely with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, and
sometimes even seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to
smell dangerously, especially of "the other world." That is all
of little value when estimated intellectually, and is far from
being "science," much less "wisdom"; but, repeated once more, and
three times repeated, it is expediency, expediency, expediency,
mixed with stupidity, stupidity, stupidity--whether it be the
indifference and statuesque coldness towards the heated folly of
the emotions, which the Stoics advised and fostered; or the no-
more-laughing and no-more-weeping of Spinoza, the destruction of
the emotions by their analysis and vivisection, which he
recommended so naively; or the lowering of the emotions to an
innocent mean at which they may be satisfied, the Aristotelianism
of morals; or even morality as the enjoyment of the emotions in a
voluntary attenuation and spiritualization by the symbolism of
art, perhaps as music, or as love of God, and of mankind for
God's sake--for in religion the passions are once more
enfranchised, provided that . . . ; or, finally, even the complaisant
and wanton surrender to the emotions, as has been taught by Hafis
and Goethe, the bold letting-go of the reins, the spiritual and
corporeal licentia morum in the exceptional cases of wise old
codgers and drunkards, with whom it "no longer has much danger."
--This also for the chapter: "Morals as Timidity."
199. Inasmuch as in all ages, as long as mankind has existed,
there have also been human herds (family alliances, communities,
tribes, peoples, states, churches), and always a great number who
obey in proportion to the small number who command--in view,
therefore, of the fact that obedience has been most practiced and
fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that,
generally speaking, the need thereof is now innate in every one,
as a kind of FORMAL CONSCIENCE which gives the command "Thou
shalt unconditionally do something, unconditionally refrain from
something", in short, "Thou shalt". This need tries to satisfy
itself and to fill its form with a content, according to its
strength, impatience, and eagerness, it at once seizes as an
omnivorous appetite with little selection, and accepts whatever
is shouted into its ear by all sorts of commanders--parents,
teachers, laws, class prejudices, or public opinion. The
extraordinary limitation of human development, the hesitation,
protractedness, frequent retrogression, and turning thereof, is
attributable to the fact that the herd-instinct of obedience is
transmitted best, and at the cost of the art of command. If one
imagine this instinct increasing to its greatest extent,
commanders and independent individuals will finally be lacking
altogether, or they will suffer inwardly from a bad conscience,
and will have to impose a deception on themselves in the first
place in order to be able to command just as if they also were
only obeying. This condition of things actually
exists in Europe
at present--I call it the moral hypocrisy of the commanding
class. They know no other way of protecting themselves from their
bad conscience than by playing the role of executors of older and
higher orders (of predecessors, of the constitution, of justice,
of the law, or of God himself), or they even justify themselves
by maxims from the current opinions of the herd, as "first
servants of their people," or "instruments of the public weal".
On the other hand, the gregarious European man nowadays assumes
an air as if he were the only kind of man that is allowable, he
glorifies his qualities, such as public spirit, kindness,
deference, industry, temperance, modesty, indulgence, sympathy,
by virtue of which he is gentle, endurable, and useful to the
herd, as the peculiarly human virtues. In cases, however, where
it is believed that the leader and bell-wether cannot be
dispensed with, attempt after attempt is made nowadays to replace
commanders by the summing together of clever gregarious men all
representative constitutions, for example, are of this origin. In
spite of all, what a blessing, what a deliverance from a weight
becoming unendurable, is the appearance of an absolute ruler for
these gregarious Europeans--of this fact the effect of the
appearance of Napoleon was the last great proof the history of
the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of the higher
happiness to which the entire century has attained in its
worthiest individuals and periods.
200. The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races with
one another, who has the inheritance of a diversified descent in
his body--that is to say, contrary, and often not only contrary,
instincts and standards of value, which struggle with one another
and are seldom at peace--such a man of late culture and broken
lights, will, on an average, be a weak man. His fundamental
desire is that the war which is IN HIM should come to an end;
happiness appears to him in the character of a soothing medicine
and mode of thought (for instance, Epicurean or Christian); it is
above all things the happiness of repose, of undisturbedness, of
repletion, of final unity--it is the "Sabbath of Sabbaths," to
use the expression of the holy rhetorician, St. Augustine, who
was himself such a man.--Should, however, the contrariety and
conflict in such natures operate as an ADDITIONAL incentive and
stimulus to life--and if, on the other hand, in addition to their
powerful and irreconcilable instincts, they have also inherited
and indoctrinated into them a proper mastery and subtlety for
carrying on the conflict with themselves (that is to say, the
faculty of self-control and self-deception), there then arise
those marvelously incomprehensible and inexplicable beings, those
enigmatical men, predestined for conquering and circumventing
others, the finest examples of which are Alcibiades and Caesar
(with whom I should like to associate the FIRST of Europeans
according to my taste, the Hohenstaufen, Frederick the Second),
and among
artists, perhaps Leonardo da Vinci. They appear
precisely in the same periods when that weaker type, with its
longing for repose, comes to the front; the two types are
complementary to each other, and spring from the same causes.
201. As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is
only gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the
community is only kept in view, and the immoral is sought
precisely and exclusively in what seems dangerous to the
maintenance of the community, there can be no "morality of love
to one's neighbour." Granted even that there is already a little
constant exercise of consideration, sympathy, fairness,
gentleness, and mutual assistance, granted that even in this
condition of society all those instincts are already active which
are latterly distinguished by honourable names as "virtues," and
eventually almost coincide with the conception "morality": in
that period they do not as yet belong to the domain of moral
valuations--they are still ULTRA-MORAL. A sympathetic action, for
instance, is neither called good nor bad, moral nor immoral, in
the best period of the Romans; and should it be praised, a sort
of resentful disdain is compatible with this praise, even at the
best, directly the sympathetic action is compared with one which
contributes to the welfare of the whole, to the RES PUBLICA.
After all, "love to our neighbour" is always a secondary matter,
partly conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to our
FEAR OF OUR NEIGHBOUR. After the fabric of society seems
on the
whole established and secured against external dangers, it is
this fear of our neighbour which again creates new perspectives
of moral valuation. Certain strong and dangerous instincts, such
as the love of enterprise, foolhardiness, revengefulness,
astuteness, rapacity, and love of power, which up till then had
not only to be honoured from the point of view of general
utility--under other names, of course, than those here given--but
had to be fostered and cultivated (because they were perpetually
required in the common danger against the common enemies), are
now felt in their dangerousness to be doubly strong--when the
outlets for them are lacking--and are gradually branded as
immoral and given over to calumny. The contrary instincts and
inclinations now attain to moral honour, the gregarious instinct
gradually draws its conclusions. How much or how little
dangerousness to the community or to equality is contained in an
opinion, a condition, an emotion, a disposition, or an endowment--
that is now the moral perspective, here again fear is the mother
of morals. It is by the loftiest and strongest instincts, when
they break out passionately and carry the individual far above
and beyond the average, and the low level of the gregarious
conscience, that the self-reliance of the community is destroyed,
its belief in itself, its backbone, as it were, breaks,
consequently these very instincts will be most branded and
defamed. The lofty independent spirituality, the will to stand
alone, and even the cogent reason, are felt to be dangers,
everything that elevates the individual above the
herd, and is a
source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called EVIL, the
tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalizing disposition,
the MEDIOCRITY of desires, attains to moral distinction and
honour. Finally, under very peaceful circumstances, there is
always less opportunity and necessity for training the feelings
to severity and rigour, and now every form of severity, even in
justice, begins to disturb the conscience, a lofty and rigorous
nobleness and self-responsibility almost offends, and awakens
distrust, "the lamb," and still more "the sheep," wins respect.
There is a point of diseased mellowness and effeminacy in the
history of society, at which society itself takes the part of him
who injures it, the part of the CRIMINAL, and does so, in fact,
seriously and honestly. To punish, appears to it to be somehow
unfair--it is certain that the idea of "punishment" and "the
obligation to punish" are then painful and alarming to people.
"Is it not sufficient if the criminal be rendered HARMLESS? Why
should we still punish? Punishment itself is terrible!"--with
these questions gregarious morality, the morality of fear, draws
its ultimate conclusion. If one could at all do away with danger,
the cause of fear, one would have done away with this morality at
the same time, it would no longer be necessary, it WOULD NOT
CONSIDER ITSELF any longer necessary!--Whoever examines the
conscience of the present-day European, will always elicit the
same imperative from its thousand moral folds and hidden
recesses, the imperative of the timidity of the herd "we wish
that some time or other there may be
NOTHING MORE TO FEAR!" Some
time or other--the will and the way THERETO is nowadays called
"progress" all over Europe.
202. Let us at once say again what we have already said a hundred
times, for people's ears nowadays are unwilling to hear such
truths--OUR truths. We know well enough how offensive it sounds
when any one plainly, and without metaphor, counts man among the
animals, but it will be accounted to us almost a CRIME, that it
is precisely in respect to men of "modern ideas" that we have
constantly applied the terms "herd," "herd-instincts," and such
like expressions. What avail is it? We cannot do otherwise, for
it is precisely here that our new insight is. We have found that
in all the principal moral judgments, Europe has become
unanimous, including likewise the countries where European
influence prevails in Europe people evidently KNOW what Socrates
thought he did not know, and what the famous serpent of old once
promised to teach--they "know" today what is good and evil. It
must then sound hard and be distasteful to the ear, when we
always insist that that which here thinks it knows, that which
here glorifies itself with praise and blame, and calls itself
good, is the instinct of the herding human animal, the instinct
which has come and is ever coming more and more to the front, to
preponderance and supremacy over other instincts, according to
the increasing physiological approximation and resemblance of
which it is the
symptom. MORALITY IN EUROPE AT PRESENT IS
HERDING-ANIMAL MORALITY, and therefore, as we understand the
matter, only one kind of human morality, beside which, before
which, and after which many other moralities, and above all
HIGHER moralities, are or should be possible. Against such a
"possibility," against such a "should be," however, this morality
defends itself with all its strength, it says obstinately and
inexorably "I am morality itself and nothing else is morality!"
Indeed, with the help of a religion which has humoured and
flattered the sublimest desires of the herding-animal, things
have reached such a point that we always find a more visible
expression of this morality even in political and social
arrangements: the DEMOCRATIC movement is the inheritance of the
Christian movement. That its TEMPO, however, is much too slow and
sleepy for the more impatient ones, for those who are sick and
distracted by the herding-instinct, is indicated by the
increasingly furious howling, and always less disguised teeth-
gnashing of the anarchist dogs, who are now roving through the
highways of European culture. Apparently in opposition to the
peacefully industrious democrats and Revolution-ideologues, and
still more so to the awkward philosophasters and fraternity-
visionaries who call themselves Socialists and want a "free
society," those are really at one with them all in their thorough
and instinctive hostility to every form of society other than
that of the AUTONOMOUS herd (to the extent even of repudiating
the notions "master" and "servant"--ni dieu ni maitre, says a
socialist formula); at one in their tenacious opposition
to every
special claim, every special right and privilege (this means
ultimately opposition to EVERY right, for when all are equal, no
one needs "rights" any longer); at one in their distrust of
punitive justice (as though it were a violation of the weak,
unfair to the NECESSARY consequences of all former society); but
equally at one in their religion of sympathy, in their compassion
for all that feels, lives, and suffers (down to the very animals,
up even to "God"--the extravagance of "sympathy for God" belongs
to a democratic age); altogether at one in the cry and impatience
of their sympathy, in their deadly hatred of suffering generally,
in their almost feminine incapacity for witnessing it or ALLOWING
it; at one in their involuntary beglooming and heart-softening,
under the spell of which Europe seems to be threatened with a new
Buddhism; at one in their belief in the morality of MUTUAL
sympathy, as though it were morality in itself, the climax, the
ATTAINED climax of mankind, the sole hope of the future, the
consolation of the present, the great discharge from all the
obligations of the past; altogether at one in their belief in the
community as the DELIVERER, in the herd, and therefore in
"themselves."
203. We, who hold a different belief--we, who regard the
democratic movement, not only as a degenerating form of political
organization, but as equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type
of man, as involving his mediocrising and depreciation: where
have WE to fix our hopes? In NEW PHILOSOPHERS--there is no other
alternative: in minds strong and original enough to initiate
opposite estimates of value, to transvalue and invert "eternal
valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future, who in the
present shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which will
compel millenniums to take NEW paths. To teach man the future of
humanity as his WILL, as depending on human will, and to make
preparation for vast hazardous enterprises and collective
attempts in rearing and educating, in order thereby to put an end
to the frightful rule of folly and chance which has hitherto gone
by the name of "history" (the folly of the "greatest number" is
only its last form)--for that purpose a new type of philosopher
and commander will some time or other be needed, at the very idea
of which everything that has existed in the way of occult,
terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and dwarfed. The
image of such leaders hovers before OUR eyes:--is it lawful for
me to say it aloud, ye free spirits? The conditions which one
would partly have to create and partly utilize for their genesis;
the presumptive methods and tests by virtue of which a soul
should grow up to such an elevation and power as to feel a
CONSTRAINT to these tasks; a transvaluation of values, under the
new pressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled
and a heart transformed into brass, so as to bear the weight of
such responsibility; and on the other hand the necessity for such
leaders, the dreadful danger that they might be lacking, or
miscarry and degenerate:--
these are OUR real anxieties and
glooms, ye know it well, ye free spirits! these are the heavy
distant thoughts and storms which sweep across the heaven of OUR
life. There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined,
or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and
deteriorated; but he who has the rare eye for the universal
danger of "man" himself DETERIORATING, he who like us has
recognized the extraordinary fortuitousness which has hitherto
played its game in respect to the future of mankind--a game in
which neither the hand, nor even a "finger of God" has
participated!--he who divines the fate that is hidden under the
idiotic unwariness and blind confidence of "modern ideas," and
still more under the whole of Christo-European morality-suffers
from an anguish with which no other is to be compared. He sees at
a glance all that could still BE MADE OUT OF MAN through a
favourable accumulation and augmentation of human powers and
arrangements; he knows with all the knowledge of his conviction
how unexhausted man still is for the greatest possibilities, and
how often in the past the type man has stood in presence of
mysterious decisions and new paths:--he knows still better from
his painfulest recollections on what wretched obstacles promising
developments of the highest rank have hitherto usually gone to
pieces, broken down, sunk, and become contemptible. The UNIVERSAL
DEGENERACY OF MANKIND to the level of the "man of the future"--as
idealized by the socialistic fools 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
brutalizing of man into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is
undoubtedly POSSIBLE! He who has thought out this possibility to
its ultimate conclusion knows ANOTHER loathing unknown to the
rest of mankind--and perhaps also a new MISSION!