"The Will to Power"
Volume II
The second volume of "The Will to Power," even in its present fragmentary form, is the most important of Nietzsche's works. It draws together under one cover many of the leading doctrines voiced in his principal constructive books, and in addition states them in terms of his fundamental postulate—the will to power. In Volume I of this work we had the application of this doctrine to morality, religion and philosophy. In the present book it is applied to science, nature, society, breeding and art. The notes are more analytical than in the former volume; and the subject-matter is in itself of greater importance, being more directly concerned with the exposition of Nietzsche's main theory. Volume II is also fuller and more homogeneous, and contains much new material. So compact is its organisation that one is able to gain a very adequate idea of the purpose which animated Nietzsche at the time of making these notes.
The will to power, the principle which Nietzsche held to be the elementary expression of life, must be understood in order for one to comprehend the Nietzschean system of ethics. Throughout all the books which followed "The Joyful Wisdom" we have indirect references to it and conclusions based on its assumption as a hypothesis. And, although it was never definitely and finally defined until the publication of the notes comprising "The Will to Power," it nevertheless was the actuating motive in all Nietzsche's constructive writings. Simply stated, the will to power is the biological instinct to maintenance, persistence and development. Nietzsche holds that Darwin's universal law of the instinct to mere survival is a misinterpretation of the forces at work in life. He points out that existence is a condition—a medium of action—and by no means an end. It is true that only the fittest survive in nature as a result of the tendency to exist; but this theory does not account for the activities which take place after existence has been assured. In order to explain these activities Nietzsche advances the theory of the will to power and tests all actions by it. It will be seen that by this theory the universal law of Darwin is by no means abrogated, but rather is it explained and developed.
In the operation of Darwin's biological law there are many forces at work. That is to say, once the fact of existence is established, numerous forces can be found at work within the limits of existence. We know that the forces of nature—acting within the medium of existence which is an a priori condition—are rarely unified and directed toward the same result. In short, they are not reciprocal. To the contrary, they work more often against each other—they are antagonistic. Immediately a war of forces takes place; and it is this war that constitutes all action in nature. A force in nature directed at another force calls forth a resistance and counter-force; and this instinct to act and to resist is in itself a will to act. Otherwise, inertia would be the condition of life, once mere existence was assured by the fittest. But life is not inert. Even when certain organisms have accomplished the victory for existence, and are no longer moved by a necessity to struggle for mere being, the will to action persists; and this will to action, according to Nietzsche, is the will for power, for in every clash of forces, there is an attempt on the part of each force to overcome and resist the antagonistic one. The greater the action, the greater the antagonism. Hence, this tendency in all forces to persist is at bottom a tendency of self-assertion, of overcoming counter-forces, of augmenting individual power. Wherever this will to persist is found, Nietzsche argues that the will to act is present; and there can be no will to act without a will to power, because the very desire for existence and development is a desire for power.
This, in brief, is Nietzsche's doctrine applied to the organic and inorganic world. In its application to the ideological world, the reasoning is not changed. In ideas Nietzsche finds this same will to power. But in them it is the reflection of the principle inherent in the material world. There is no will inherent in ideas. This assumption of a reflected will to power in the ideological world is one of Nietzsche's most important concepts, for it makes all ideas the outgrowth of ourselves, and therefore dependent on natural laws. It does away with the conception of supernatural power and with the old philosophical belief that ideas are superior forces to those of the organic and inorganic world. Nietzsche once and for all disposes of the theory that there is anything more powerful than force, and by thus doing away with this belief, he rationalises all ideas and puts thought on a tangible and stable basis. In the opening section of the present book where he applies the will to power to scientific research, the whole of this new theory is made clear, and I advise the student to read well this section, for I have been unable to present as clear and complete an expositional statement of it in Nietzsche's own words as I would have liked to do, owing to the close and interrelated manner in which these notes were written.
Volume II of "The Will to Power" is in two books. The first is called "The Principles of a New Valuation"; the second, "Discipline and Breeding." The first book is divided into four sections—"The Will to Power in Science," "The Will to Power in Nature," "The Will to Power as Exemplified in Society and in the Individual" and "The Will to Power in Art." The second book has three divisions—"The Order of Rank," "Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence." Of the first section of Book One, "The Will to Power in Science," I have already spoken. In this section Nietzsche shows how arbitrary a thing science is, and how closely related are its conclusions to the instinct of the scientists, namely: the instinct of the will to power. Scientists, he holds, are confronted by the necessity of translating all phenomena into terms compatible with the struggle for persistence and maintenance. A fact in nature unaccounted for is a danger, an obstacle to the complete mastery of natural conditions. Consequently the scientist, directed and influenced by his will to power, invents explanations which will bring all facts under his jurisdiction and control, and will thereby increase his feeling of power. As a result, the great facts of life are looked upon as of secondary importance to their explanations, and science becomes, not an intelligent search for knowledge, but a system of interpretations tending to increase the feeling of mastery in the men directly connected with it. Thus the law of the will to power, as manifest in the organic and inorganic world, becomes the dominating instinct in the ideological world as well.
It is well to speak here of truth as Nietzsche conceived it. We have seen how he denied its absolutism and declared it to be relative. But in his present work he goes further and contends that the feeling of the increase of power is the determining factor in truth. If, as we have seen, the "truths" of science are merely those interpretations which grow out of the scientists' will to power, then truth itself must be the outgrowth of this instinct. That which makes for the growth and development of the individual—or in other words, that which increases the feeling of strength—is necessarily the truth. From this it is easy to deduce the conclusion that in many instances truth is a reversal of facts, for preservation very often consists in an adherence to actual falsity. Thus, the false causality of certain phenomena—the outcome of logic engendered by a will to power—has not infrequently masqueraded as truth. Nietzsche holds that this doctrine contains the only possible definition of truth; and in this doctrine we find an explanation for many of the apparent paradoxes in his teachings when the matter of truth and falsity are under discussion.
The second part of the first book relates to the will to power in nature, and contains the most complete and lucid explanation of Nietzsche's basic theory to be found anywhere in his writings. This section opens with an argument against a purely mechanical interpretation of the world, and a refutation of the physicists' concept of "energy." The chemical and physical laws, the atomic theory and the mechanical concept of movement, he characterises as "inventions" on the part of scientists and researchers for the purpose of understanding natural phenomena and therefore of increasing their feeling of power. The apparent sequence of phenomena which constitutes "law" is, according to Nietzsche, only a "relation of power between two or more forces"—a matter of interdependence, a process wherein the "procession of moments do not determine each other after the manner of cause and effect." In these observations we see the process of reasoning with which Nietzsche refutes the current methods of ascertaining facts and the manner in which he introduces the principle of will to power into the phenomena of nature.
It is in this section that Nietzsche discusses at length the points of divergence between his life principle and that of Darwin. And it is here also that he treats of the psychology of pleasure and pain in their relation to the will to power. This latter statement is of great importance in an understanding of the instincts of life as he taught them, for it denies both pleasure and pain a place in the determining of acts. They are both, according to him, but accompanying factors, never causes, and are but second-rate valuations derived from a dominating value. He denies that man struggles for happiness. To the contrary, he holds that all expansion and growth and resistance—in short, all movement—is related to states of pain, and that, although the modern man is master of the forces of nature and of himself, he is no happier than the primeval man. Why, then, does man struggle for knowledge and growth, knowing that it does not bring happiness? Not for existence, because existence is already assured him. But for power, for the feeling of increased mastery. Thus Nietzsche answers the two common explanations of man's will to action—the need for being and the desire for happiness—by his doctrine of the will to power.
The entire teaching of Nietzsche in regard to classes and to the necessity of divergent moral codes to meet the needs of higher and lower castes, is contained in the third part of the first book. Here again he emphasises the need of two codes and makes clear his stand in relation to the superior individual. As I have pointed out in preceding chapters, Nietzsche did not attempt to do away with the morality of the inferior classes. He saw that some such religious belief as Christianity was imperative for them. His fight was against its application to all classes, against its dominance. I mention this point again because it is the basis of the greatest misunderstanding of Nietzsche's philosophy. Part III is written for the higher man, and if this viewpoint is assumed on the part of the reader, there will be no confusion as to doctrines encountered. The statements in this section are in effect similar to those to be found in Nietzsche's previous works, but in every instance in the present case they are directly related to the will to power. Because of this they possess a significance which does not attach to them in antecedent volumes.
The whole of Nietzsche's art theories are to be found in Part IV, "The Will to Power in Art." It is not merely a system of æsthetics that occupies the pages under this section, for Nietzsche never divorces art from life itself; and the artist, according to him, is the superior type, the creator of values. The concepts of beauty and ugliness are the outgrowths of an overflow of Dionysian power; and it is to the great artists of the past, the instinctive higher men, that we owe our current concepts. The principle here is the dominant one in Nietzsche's philosophy in relation to valuing:—to the few individuals of the race are we indebted for the world of values. To the student who wishes to go deeply into Nietzsche's ideas of art and his conception of the artist, and to know in just what manner the Dionysian and Apollonian figure in his theories, I unhesitatingly recommend Anthony M. Ludovici's book, "Nietzsche and Art."
The first section of the second book in this volume contains some of Nietzsche's finest writing. Its title, "The Order of Rank," explains in a large measure what material comprises it. It is a description of the various degrees of man, and a statement of the attributes which belong to each. No better definition of the different classes of men is to be found anywhere in this philosopher's writings. One part is devoted to a consideration of the strong and the weak, and the way in which they react on one another; another part deals with "the noble man" and contains (in Aphorism 943) a list of the characteristics of the noble man, unfortunately too long a list to be quoted in the present chapter; another part defines "the lords of the earth"; another part delineates "the great man," and enumerates his specific qualities; and still another part treats of "the highest man as law-giver of the future." This section, however, is not a mere series of detached and isolated definitions, but an important summary of the ethical code which Nietzsche advanced as a result of his application of the doctrine of the will to power to the order of individual rank.
The two remaining sections—"Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence"—are short, and fail to touch on new ground. There are a few robust and heroic passages in the former section which summarise Nietzsche's definitions of Apollonian and Dionysian; but in the latter section there is nothing not found in the pamphlet called "The Eternal Recurrence" and in "Thus Spake Zarathustra." I do not doubt that Nietzsche had every intention of elaborating this last section, for he considered the principle of recurrence a most important one in his philosophy. But, as it stands, it is but a few pages in length and in no way touches upon his other philosophical doctrines. If importance it had in the philosophy of the superman, that importance was never shown either by Nietzsche or by his critics.
However, let us not overlook the importance of the doctrine of the will to power either in its relation to Nietzsche's writings or in its application to ourselves. By this doctrine the philosopher wished to make mankind realise its great dormant power. The insistence on the human basis of all things was no more than a call to arms—an attempt to instil courage in men who had attributed all great phenomena to supernatural forces and had therefore acquiesced before them instead of having endeavoured to conquer them. Nietzsche's object was to make man surer of himself, to infuse him with pride, to imbue him with more daring, to awaken him to a full realisation of his possibilities. This, in brief, is the teaching of the will to power reduced to its immediate influences. In this doctrine is preached a new virility. Not the sedentary virility of compromise, but the virility which is born of struggle and suffering, which is a sign of one's great love of living. Nietzsche offered a new set of vital ideals to supplant the decadent ones which now govern us. Resolute faith, the power of affirmation, initiative, pride, courage and fearlessness—these are the rewards in the exercise of the will to power. The strength of great love and the vitality of great deeds, as well as the possibility of rare and vigorous growth, lie within this doctrine of will. Its object is to give back to us the life we have lost—the life of beauty and plenitude, of strength and exuberance.
EXCERPTS FROM "THE WILL TO POWER" volume II
For hundreds of years, pleasure and pain have been represented as the motives for every action. Upon reflection, however, we are bound to concede that everything would have proceeded in exactly the same way, according to precisely the same sequence of cause and effect, if the states "pleasure" and "pain" had been entirely absent. 8-9
The measure of the desire for knowledge depends upon the extent to which the Will to Power grows in a certain species: a species gets a grasp of a given amount of reality, in order to master it, in order to enlist that amount in its service. 12
It is our needs that interpret the world; our instincts and their impulses for and against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power.... 13
That a belief, however useful it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with the truth, may be seen from the fact that we must believe in time, space, and motion, without feeling ourselves compelled to regard them as absolute realities. 16
Truth is that hind of error without which a certain species of living being cannot exist. 20
In the formation of reason, logic, and the categories, it was a need in us that was the determining power: not the need "to know," but to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of intelligibility and calculation. 29
Logic is the attempt on our part to understand the actual world according to a scheme of Being devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, it is our attempt at making the actual world more calculable and more susceptible to formulation, for our own purposes.... 33
"Truth" is the will to be master over the manifold sensations that reach consciousness; it is the will to classify phenomena according to definite categories. In this way we start out with a belief in the "true nature" of things (we regard phenomena as real).
The character of the world in the process of Becoming is not susceptible of formulation; it is "false" and "contradicts itself." Knowledge and the process of evolution exclude each other. Consequently, knowledge must be something else; it must be preceded by a will to make things knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must create the impression of Being. 33-34
The chief error of psychologists: they regard the indistinct idea as of a lower kind than the distinct; but that which keeps at a distance from our consciousness and which is therefore obscure, may on that very account be quite clear in itself. The fact that a thing becomes obscure is a question of the perspective of consciousness. 42
The criterion of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of power. 49
Logic was intended to be a method of facilitating thought: a means of expression,—not truth.... Later on it got to act like truth.... 50
In a world which was essentially false, truthfulness would be an anti-natural tendency: its only purpose would be to provide a means of attaining to a higher degree of falsity. 51
We have absolutely no experience concerning cause; viewed psychologically we derive the whole concept from the subjective conviction, that we ourselves are causes. 55
"Truth" is not something which is present and which has to be found and discovered; it is something which has to be created and which gives its name to a process, or, better still, to the Will to overpower, which in itself has no purpose.... 60
The absolute is even an absurd concept: an "absolute mode of existence" is nonsense, the concept "being," "thing," is always relative to us.
The trouble is that, owing to the old antithesis "apparent" and "real," the correlative valuations "little value" and "absolute value" have been spread abroad. 83
Man seeks "the truth": a world that does not contradict itself, that does not deceive, that does not change, a real world—a world in which there is no suffering: contradiction, deception, variability—the causes of suffering. He does not doubt that there is such a thing as a world as it ought to be; he would fain find a road to it.... Obviously, the will to truth is merely the longing for a stable world.
The senses deceive; reason corrects the errors: therefore, it was concluded, reason is the road to a static state; the most spiritual ideas must be nearest to the "real world." 88
The degree of a man's will-power may be measured from the extent to which he can dispense with the meaning in things, from the extent to which he is able to endure a world without meaning: because he himself arranges a small portion of it. 90
There is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates, everything is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all things are our opinions. 103
That the worth of the world lies in our interpretations (that perhaps yet other interpretations are possible somewhere, besides mankind's); that the interpretations made hitherto were perspective valuations, by means of which we were able to survive in life, i. e. in the Will to Power and in the growth of power; that every elevation of man involves the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every higher degree of strength or power attained, brings new views in its train, and teaches a belief in new horizons—these doctrines lie scattered through all my works. 107
The triumphant concept "energy" with which our physicists created God and the world, needs yet to be completer: it must be given an inner will which I characterise as the "Will to Power"—that is to say, as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or the application and exercise of power as a creative instinct, etc.... 110
The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law," but a relation of power between two or more forces. 115
A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces and the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of existence—it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "Will to Power." ... 117-118
My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms with those (by "combining" with those) which are sufficiently related to it—and thus they conspire together for power. And the process continues. 121
The influence of "environment" is nonsensically over-rated in Darwin: the essential factor in the process of life is precisely the tremendous inner power to shape and to create forms, which merely uses, exploits "environment." 127
The feeling of being surcharged, the feeling accompanying an increase in strength, quite apart from the utility of the struggle, is the actual progress: from these feelings the will to war is first derived. 128
A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength: "self-preservation" is only one of the results thereof.... 128
The most fundamental and most primeval activity of a protoplasm cannot be ascribed to a will to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount of material which is absurdly out of proportion with the needs of its preservation: and what is more, it does not "preserve itself" in the process, but actually falls to pieces .... The instinct which rules here, must account for this total absence in the organism of a desire to preserve itself.
The will to power can manifest itself only against obstacles: it therefore goes in search of what resists it—this is the primitive tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its pseudopodia and feels about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, the result of an additional building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected creature has become completely a part of the superior creature's sphere of power, and has increased the latter.... 130
Why is all activity, even that of a sense, associated with pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or a burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a process of overcoming, of becoming master of, and of increasing the feeling of power? 135
Man is not only an individual, but the continuation of collective organic life in one definite line. The fact that man survives, proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though it still be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method of interpreting has not changed. 152
The fundamental phenomena: innumerable individuals are sacrificed for the sake of a few, in order to make the few possible.—One must not allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same with peoples and races: they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and valuable individuals, who continue the great process. 153
Life is not the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" phenomena. 153-154
Man as a species is not progressing. Higher specimens are indeed attained; but they do not survive. The general level of the species is not raised.... Man as a species does not represent any sort of progress compared with any other animal. 157
The domestication (culture) of man does not sink very deep. When it does sink far below the skin it immediately becomes degeneration (type: the Christian). The "wild" man (or, in moral terminology, the evil man) is a reversion to Nature—and, in a certain sense, he represents a recovery, a cure from the effects of "culture."... 158
The strong always have to be upheld against the weak; and the well-constituted against the ill-constituted, the healthy against the sick and physiologically botched. If we drew our morals from reality, they would read thus: the mediocre are more valuable than the exceptional creatures, and the decadent than the mediocre; the will to nonentity prevails over the will to life.... 159
That species show an ascending tendency, is the most nonsensical assertion that has ever been made: until now they have only manifested a dead level. There is nothing whatever to prove that the higher organisms have developed from the lower. 160
Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man of the future; all the formative powers which are to produce the latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are enormous, the more promising for the future the modern individual happens to be, the more suffering falls to his lot. 161
The will to power is the primitive motive force out of which all other motives have been derived. 162
From a psychological point of view the idea of "cause" is our feeling of power in the act which is called willing—our concept "effect" is the superstition that this feeling of power is itself the force which moves things.... 163
Life as an individual case (a hypothesis which may be applied to existence in general) strives after the maximum feeling of power; life is essentially a striving after more power; striving itself is only a straining after more power; the most fundamental and innermost thing of all is this will. 165
Man does not seek happiness and does not avoid unhappiness. Everybody knows the famous prejudices I here contradict. Pleasure and pain are mere results, mere accompanying phenomena—that which every man, which every tiny particle of a living organism will have, is an increase of power. In striving after this, pleasure and pain are encountered; it is owing to that will that the organism seeks opposition and requires that which stands in its way.... Pain as the hindrance of its will to power is therefore a normal feature, a natural ingredient of every organic phenomenon; man does not avoid it; on the contrary, he is constantly in need of it; every triumph, every feeling of pleasure, every event presupposes an obstacle overcome. 172
Man is now master of the forces of nature, and master too of his own wild and unbridled feelings (the passions have followed suit, and have learned to become useful)—in comparison with primeval man, the man of to-day represents an enormous quantum of power, but not an increase in happiness. How can one maintain, then, that he has striven after happiness? 174
"God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying and undeifying. But withal there is no zenith of values, but only a zenith of power. 181
Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd. 186
When the instincts of a society ultimately make it give up war and renounce conquest, it is decadent: it is ripe for democracy and the rule of shopkeepers. 189
The maintenance of the military State is the last means of adhering to the great tradition of the past; or, where it has been lost, to revive it. By means of it the superior or strong type of man is preserved, and all institutions and ideas which perpetuate enmity and order of rank in States such as national feeling, protective tariffs, etc., may on that account seem justified. 190
Concerning the future of marriage.—A supertax on inherited property, a longer term of military service for bachelors of a certain minimum age within the community.
Privileges of all sorts for fathers who lavish boys upon the world, and perhaps plural votes as well.
A medical certificate as a condition of any marriage, endorsed by the parochial authorities, in which a series of questions addressed to the parties and the medical officers must be answered ("family histories").
As a counter-agent to prostitution, or as its ennoblement, I would recommend leasehold marriages (to last for a term of years or months), with adequate provision for the children.
Every marriage to be warranted and sanctioned by a certain number of good men and true, of the parish, as a parochial obligation. 193
Society ... should in many cases actually prevent the act of procreation, and may, without any regard for rank, descent, or intellect, hold in readiness the most rigorous forms of compulsion and restriction, and, under certain circumstances, have recourse to castration. 194
The idea of punishment ought to be reduced to the concept of the suppression of revolt, a weapon against the vanquished (by means of long or short terms of imprisonment). But punishment should not be associated in any way with contempt. A criminal is at all events a man who has set his life, his honour, his freedom at stake; he is therefore a man of courage. Neither should punishment be regarded as penance or retribution, as though there were some recognised rate of exchange between crime and punishment. Punishment does not purify, simply because crime does not sully. 198
Should not the punishment fit the crime? 200
"The will to power" is so loathed in democratic ages that the whole of the psychology of these ages seems directed towards its belittlement and slander. 205
I am opposed to Socialism because it dreams ingenuously of "goodness, truth, beauty, and equal rights" (anarchy pursues the same ideal, but in a more brutal fashion).
I am opposed to parliamentary government and the power of the press, because they are the means whereby cattle become masters. 206
The idea of a higher order of man is hated much more profoundly than monarchs themselves. Hatred of aristocracy always uses hatred of monarchy as a mask. 207
Utility and pleasure are slave theories of life. "The blessing of work" is an ennobling phrase for slaves. Incapacity for leisure. 208
There is no such thing as a right to live, a right to work, or a right to be happy: in this respect man is no different from the meanest worm. 208
Fundamental errors: to regard the herd as an aim instead of the individual! The herd is only a means and nothing more! But nowadays people are trying to understand the herd as they would an individual, and to confer higher rights upon it than upon isolated personalities. In addition to this, all that makes for gregariousness, e.g., sympathy, is regarded as the more valuable side of our natures. 214-215
The will to power appears:—
(a) Among the oppressed and slaves of all kinds, in the form of will to "freedom": the mere fact of breaking loose from something seems to be an end in itself (in a religio-moral sense: "One is only answerable to one's own conscience"; "evangelical freedom," etc., etc.).
(b) In the case of a stronger species, ascending to power, in the form of the will to overpower. If this fails, then it shrinks to the "will to justice"—that is to say, to the will to the same measure of rights as the ruling caste possesses.
(c) In the case of the strongest, richest, most independent, and most courageous, in the form of "love of humanity," of "love of the people," of the "gospel," of "truth," of "God," of "pity," of "self-sacrifice," etc., etc.; in the form of overpowering, of deeds of capture, of imposing service on some one, of an instinctive reckoning of one's self as part of a great mass of power to which one attempts to give a direction: the hero, the prophet, the Cæsar, the Saviour, the bell-wether. 220-221
Individualism is a modest and still unconscious form of will to power; with it a single human unit seems to think it sufficient to free himself from the preponderating power of society (or of the State or Church). He does not set himself up in opposition as a personality, but merely as a unit; he represents the rights of all other individuals as against the whole. That is to say, he instinctively places himself on a level with every other unit: what he combats he does not combat as a person, but as a representative of units against a mass. 227
There are no such things as moral actions: they are purely imaginary. Not only is it impossible to demonstrate their existence (a fact which Kant and Christianity, for instance, both acknowledge)—but they are not even possible. Owing to psychological misunderstanding, man invented an opposite to the instinctive impulses of life, and believed that a new species of instinct was thereby discovered: a primum mobile was postulated which does not exist at all. According to the valuation which gave rise to the antithesis "moral" and "immoral," one should say: There is nothing else on earth but immoral intentions and actions.
The whole differentiation, "moral" and "immoral," arises from the assumption that both moral and immoral actions are the result of a spontaneous will—in short, that such a will exists; or in other words, that moral judgments can only hold good with regard to intuitions and actions that are free. But this whole order of actions and intentions is purely imaginary: the only world to which the moral standard could be applied does not exist at all: there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral action. 230-231
There are two conditions in which art manifests itself in man even as a force of nature, and disposes of him whether he consent or not: it may be as a constraint to visionary states, or it may be an orgiastic impulse. 240
Sexuality, intoxication, cruelty; all these belong to the oldest festal joys of mankind, they also preponderate in budding artists. 243
The desire for art and beauty is an indirect longing for the ecstasy of sexual desire, which gets communicated to the brain. 248
All art works as a tonic; it increases strength, it kindles desire (i.e., the feeling of strength), it excites all the more subtle recollections of intoxication.... 252
The inartistic states are: objectivity, reflection, suspension of the will.... The inartistic states are: those which impoverish, which subtract, which bleach, under which life suffers—the Christian. 257
Would any link be missing in the whole chain of science and art, if woman, if woman's work, were excluded from it? Let us acknowledge the exception—it proves the rule—that woman is capable of perfection in everything which does not constitute a work: in letters, in memoirs, in the most intricate handiwork—in short, in everything which is not a craft.... 260-261
A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything that inartistic people call "form" as the actual substance, as the "principal" thing. 261
The essential feature in art is its power of perfecting existence, its production of perfection and plenitude; art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.... 263
The greatness of an artist is not to be measured by the beautiful feelings which he evokes: let this belief be left to the girls. It should be measured according to the extent to which he approaches the grand style, according to the extent to which he is capable of the grand style. This style and great passion have this in common—that they scorn to please; that they forget to persuade: that they command; that they will.... To become master of the chaos which is in one; to compel one's inner chaos to assume form; to become consistent, simple, unequivocal, mathematical, law—this is the great ambition here. 277
A preference for questionable and terrible things is a symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles is characteristic of the weak and the delicate. 287
Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of life.
Art is the only superior counter-agent to all will to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti-Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic force. 290
Quanta of power alone determine rank and distinguish rank: nothing else does. 295
It is necessary for higher men to declare war upon the masses! In all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make themselves masters. Everything that pampers, that softens, and that brings the "people" or "woman" to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage—that is to say, the dominion of inferior men. 297
Woman has always conspired with decadent types,—the priests, for instance,—against the "mighty," against the "strong," against men. Women avail themselves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and love:—the mother stands as the symbol of convincing altruism. 300
It is necessary to show that a counter-movement is inevitably associated with any increasingly economical consumption of men and mankind, and with an ever more closely involved "machinery" of interests and services. I call this counter-movement the separation of the luxurious surplus of mankind: by means of it a stronger kind, a higher type, must come to light, which has other conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than the average man. My concept, my metaphor for this type is, as you know, the word "Superman." 305
Readers are beginning to see what I am combating—namely, economic optimism: as if the general welfare of everybody must necessarily increase with the growing self-sacrifice of everybody. The very reverse seems to me to be the case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a collective loss; man becomes inferior—so that nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose has served. 306-307
The root of all evil: that the slave morality of modesty, chastity, selfishness, and absolute obedience should have triumphed. Dominating natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy, (2) to qualms of conscience,—creative natures regarded themselves as rebels against God, uncertain and hemmed in by eternal values. 309
That which men of power and will are able to demand of themselves gives them the standard for what they may also allow themselves. Such natures are the very opposite of the vicious and the unbridled: although under certain circumstances they may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man would be convicted of vice and intemperance.
In this respect the concept, "all men are equal before God" does an extraordinary amount of harm; actions and attitudes of mind were forbidden which belonged to the prerogative of the strong alone, just as if they were in themselves unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong men were brought into disrepute by the fact that the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of those who were weakest towards themselves) were established as a standard of valuation. 311
The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes has been the cause of all the great disorders in history! 312
The solitary type should not be valued from the standpoint of the gregarious type, or vice versa. 320
Who would dare to disgust the mediocre of their mediocrity! As you observe, I do precisely the reverse: every step away from mediocrity—thus do I teach—leads to immorality. 324
What I combat: that an exceptional form should make war upon the rule—instead of understanding that the continued existence of the rule is the first condition of the value of the exception. 325
One should not suppose the mission of a higher species to be the leading of inferior men (as Comte does, for instance); but the inferior should be regarded as the foundation upon which a higher species may live their higher life—upon which alone they can stand. 329
My consolation is, that the nature of man is evil, and this guarantees his strength! 332
There is no true scholar who has not the instincts of a true soldier in his veins. To be able to command and to be able to obey in a proud fashion; to keep one's place in rank and file, and yet to be ready at any moment to lead; to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness. What is it that one learns in a hard school?—to obey and to command. 335
The means by which a strong species maintains itself:—
It grants itself the right of exceptional actions, as a test of the power of self-control and of freedom.
It abandons itself to states in which a man is not allowed to be anything else than a barbarian.
It tries to acquire strength of will by every kind of asceticism.
It is not expansive; it practises silence; it is cautious in regard to all charms.
It learns to obey in such a way that obedience provides a test of self-maintenance. Casuistry is carried to its highest pitch in regard to points of honour.
It never argues, "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander"—but conversely! it regards reward, and the ability to repay, as a privilege, as a distinction.
It does not covet other people's virtues. 341
The blind yielding to a passion, whether it be generosity, pity, or hostility, is the cause of the greatest evil. Greatness of character does not consist in not possessing these passions—on the contrary, a man should possess them to a terrible degree: but he should lead them by the bridle.... 346
Education: essentially a means of ruining exceptions in favour of the rule. Culture: essentially the means of directing taste against the exceptions in favour of the mediocre. 349
What is noble?—The fact that one is constantly forced to be playing a part. That one is constantly searching for situations in which one is forced to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the greatest number: the happiness which consists of inner peacefulness, of virtue, of comfort, and of Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness, à la Spencer. That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsibilities. That one knows how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That one contradicts the greatest number, not in words at all, but by continually behaving differently from them. 357
The first thing that must be done is to rear a new kind of man in whom the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts is guaranteed for many generations. This must be a new kind of ruling species and caste—this ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat lengthy and not easily expressed consequences of this thought. The aim should be to prepare a transvaluation of values for a particularly strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and, to his end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in him a whole host of slandered instincts hitherto held in check.... 363-364
The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples is in my opinion of less importance than the misfortunes which attend great individuals in their development. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men. 369
The greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is precisely out of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings they suscitate, that the great man arises,—for the great man is the broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart. 370
In great men we find the specific qualities of life in their highest manifestation: injustice, falsehood, exploitation. But inasmuch as their effect has always been overwhelming, their essential nature has been most thoroughly misunderstood, and interpreted as goodness. 370-371
We must not make men "better," we must not talk to them about morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must create circumstances in which stronger men are necessary, such as for their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will consequently insist! 379
We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. For the former involves independence; but without intellectual greatness independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create disasters even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." Inferior spirits must obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of greatness. 380
I teach that there are higher and lower men, and that a single individual may under certain circumstances justify whole millenniums of existence—that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater, and more complete man, as compared with innumerable imperfect and fragmentary men. 386
He who determines values and leads the will of millenniums, and does this by leading the highest natures—he is the highest man. 386
We should attain to such a height, to such a lofty eagle's ledge, in our observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens, just as it ought to happen: and that all "imperfection," and the pain it brings, belong to all that which is most eminently desirable. 389
Pleasure appears with the feeling of power.
Happiness means that power and triumph have entered into our consciousness.
Progress is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise great will-power: everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger. 403
Man is a combination of the beast and the superbeast: higher man a combination of the monster and the superman: these opposites belong to each other. With every degree of a man's growth towards greatness and loftiness, he also grows downwards into the depths and into the terrible:... 405
The word "Dionysian" expresses: a constraint to unity, a soaring above personality, the commonplace, society, reality, and above the abyss of the ephemeral; the passionately painful sensation of superabundance, in darker, fuller, and more fluctuating conditions; an ecstatic saying of yea to the collective character of existence, as that which remains the same, and equally mighty and blissful throughout all change; the great pantheistic sympathy with pleasure and pain, which declares even the most terrible and most questionable qualities of existence good, and sanctifies them; the eternal will to procreation, to fruitfulness, and to recurrence; the feeling of unity in regard to the necessity of creating and annihilating. 415-416
At this point I set up the Dionysus of the Greeks: the religious affirmation of Life, of the whole of Life, not of denied and partial Life.... 420
God on the Cross is a curse upon Life, a signpost directing people to deliver themselves from it;—Dionysus cut into pieces is a promise of Life: it will be for ever born anew, and rise afresh from destruction. 421
[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
In the following list no attempt has been made at completion. I have set down only the important and more useful works concerning Nietzsche and his philosophy, and have further limited myself to such volumes as are in English. I have omitted entirely the large number of essays on Nietzsche which have appeared in magazines, as well as those books which embody only the various Nietzschean ideas.
EXPOSITIONAL BOOKS
THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by H. L. Mencken. A brilliantly written and extensive exposition of Nietzsche's thought, including an account of the philosopher's life, a discussion of his origins, a reply to his critics, and a chapter on how to study him. Mr. Mencken's book, though untechnical, is comprehensive, concise and admirably conceived. It constitutes one of the most valuable Nietzschean commentaries in English.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: HIS LIFE AND WORK, by M. A. Mügge. A large and scholarly treatise of special value to the philosophical student. This work, a pioneer one, is somewhat ponderous and uninteresting, but none the less exhaustive; and contains a bibliography consisting of 850 titles.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIETZSCHE, by Georges H. Chatterton-Hill. A suggestive, academic study of the main points in the Nietzschean ethic. This book is too technical in places to appeal strongly to the beginner, but is invaluable as supplementary reading.
THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE, by J. M. Kennedy. An interesting and unassuming survey of Nietzsche's work, abounding with quotations.
NIETZSCHE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS, by Anthony M. Ludovici. Mr. Ludovici is the translator of many of Nietzsche's works into English, and has contributed to Dr. Levy's edition several prefaces and many explanatory notes. His book is complete and authoritative.
Other adequate commentaries are: THE GOSPEL OF SUPERMAN, by Henri Lichtenberger, translated from the French by J. M. Kennedy; FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by A. R. Orage; NIETZSCHE AS CRITIC, PHILOSOPHER, POET AND PROPHET, by Thomas Common; THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by Grace Neal Dolson; and FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by Georg Brandes, translated by A. G. Chater.
BIOGRAPHIES
THE LIFE OF NIETZSCHE, by Frau Förster-Nietzsche. This work, in two volumes, is the standard biography of Nietzsche, written by his sister. Though elaborate in detail and replete in personal correspondence and papers, it is not all that might be hoped for. One's devoted sister does not always make the most penetrating biographer.
THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by Daniel Halévy, translated from the French by J. M. Hone. M. Halévy has founded his work on that of Frau Förster-Nietzsche; and while his version improves on its model at many points, it is in places supposititious and over-drawn, and is conceived in too ironical a vein.
Unfortunately there is no adequate biography of Nietzsche in existence. Nor is there likely to be one, inasmuch as all the papers and data necessary for such an undertaking are in the possession of Nietzsche's sister.
BOOKS OF SELECTIONS
THE GIST OF NIETZSCHE, by H. L. Mencken.
NIETZSCHE IN OUTLINE AND APHORISM, by A. R. Orage.
NIETZSCHE: HIS MAXIMS, by J. M. Kennedy.