Nietzsche: His Life and Works

by Anthony M. Ludovici

In order that we may understand how to set forth upon this inquiry, let us first form a mental image of the two codes as they must have been evolved by their originators.

Nietzsche reminds us before we start, however,[1] that in most communities the two moralities have become so confused and mingled, in order to establish that compromise which is so dear to the hearts of the peaceful, that it would be almost a hopeless task to seek any society on earth in which they are now to be seen juxtaposed in sharp contrast. Be this as it may, in order to recognise the blood of each when we come across it, we have only to think of what must have occurred when the ruling caste and the ruled class took to moralising.

Taking the ruling caste first, it is clear that in their morality, all is good which proceeds from strength, power, health, well-constitutedness, happiness, and awfulness; for the motive force behind the people who evolved it was simply the will to discharge a plenitude, a superabundance, of spiritual and physical wealth. A consciousness of high tension, of a treasure that would fain give and bestow,—this is the mental attitude of the nobles. The antithesis "good" and "bad" to this first class means the same as "noble" and "despicable." "Bad" in the master morality must be applied to the coward, to all acts that spring from weakness, to the man with "an eye to the main chance," who would forsake everything in order to live.

The creator of the master morality was he who, out of the very fulness of his soul, transfigured all he saw and heard, and declared it better, greater, more beautiful than it appeared to the creator of the slave morality. Great artists, great legislators, and great warriors belong to the class that created master morality.

Turning now to the second class, we must bear in mind that it is the product of a community in which the struggle for existence is the prime life-motor. There, inasmuch as oppression, suffering, weariness, and servitude are the general rule, all will be regarded as good that tends to alleviate pain. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry, and humility,—these are undoubtedly the virtues we shall here find elevated to the highest places; because they are useful virtues; they make life endurable; they are helpful in the struggle for existence. To this class, all that proceeds from strength, superabundance of spiritual or bodily power, or great health, is looked upon with loathing and mistrust, while that which is awful is the worst and greatest evil. He is good who is amenable, kind, unselfish, meek, and submissive; that is why, in all communities where slave morality is in the ascendant, a "good fellow" always suggests a man in possession of a fair modicum of foolishness and sentimentality.

The creator of slave-morality was one who, out of the poverty of his soul, transfigured all he saw and heard, and declared it smaller, meaner, and less beautiful than it appeared to the creator of the master values. Great misanthropists, pessimists, demagogues, tasteless artists, nihilists, spiteful authors and dramatists, and resentful saints belong to the class that created slave-morality.

The first order of values are active, creative, Dionysiac. The second are passive, defensive, venomous, subterranean; to them belong "Adaptation," "adjustment," and "utilitarian relationship to environment."

Now, seeing that mankind is undoubtedly moulded by the nature of the values which prevail over it, it is manifestly of paramount importance to the philosopher to know which order of values conduces to rear the most desirable species of man, and then to advocate that order, with all the art and science at his disposal.

Nietzsche saw two lines of life: an ascending and a descending line. At the end of the one he pictured an ideal type, robust in mind and body, rich enough in spirit and vigour to make giving and bestowing a necessary condition of its existence; at the end of the other line he already perceived degeneracy, poverty of blood and spirit, and a sufficiently low degree of vitality to make parasitism a biological need.

He believed that the first, or noble morality, when it prevailed, made for an ascending line of life and therefore favoured the multiplication of a desirable type of man; and he was now equally convinced that whenever ignoble or slave morality was supreme, life not only tended to follow the descending line, but that the very men whose existence it favoured were the least likely to stem the declining tide. Hence it seemed to him that the most essential of all tasks was to ascertain what kind of morality now prevailed, in order that we might immediately transvalue our values, while there was still time, if we believed this change to be necessary.