My teaching is this, that the herd seeks to maintain and preserve one type of man, and that it defends itself on two sides—that is to say, against those which are decadents from its ranks (criminals, etc.), and against those who rise superior to its dead level. The instincts of the herd tend to a stationary state of society; they merely preserve. They have no creative power.
The pleasant feelings of goodness and benevolence with which the just man fills us (as opposed to the suspense and the fear to which the great innovating man gives rise) are our own sensations of personal security and equality: in this way the gregarious animal glorifies the gregarious nature, and then begins to feel at ease. This judgment on the part of the "comfortable" ones rigs itself out in the most beautiful words—and thus "morality" is born. Let any one observe, however, the hatred of the herd for all truthful men.
286.
Let us not deceive ourselves! When a man hears the whisper of the moral imperative in his breast, as altruism would have him hear it, he shows thereby that he belongs to the herd. When a man is conscious of the opposite feelings,—that is to say, when he sees his danger and his undoing in disinterested and unselfish actions,—then he does not belong to the herd.
287.
My philosophy aims at a new order of rank: not at an individualistic morality.[5] The spirit of the herd should rule within the herd—but not beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally different valuation for their actions, as do also the independent ones or the beasts of prey, etc.
[5] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE—Here is a broad distinction between Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer.
3. General Observations Concerning Morality.
288.