What I want to make clear, with all the means in my power, is:—
(a) That there is no worse confusion than that which confounds rearing and taming: and these two things have always been confused.... Rearing, as I understand it, is a means of husbanding the enormous powers of humanity in such a way that whole generations may build upon the foundations laid by their progenitors—not only outwardly, but inwardly, organically, developing from the already existing stem and growing stronger....
(b) That there is an exceptional danger in believing that mankind as a whole is developing and growing stronger, if individuals are seen to grow more feeble and more equally mediocre. Humanity—mankind—is an abstract thing: the object of rearing, even in regard to the most individual cases, can only be the strong man (the man who has no breeding is weak, dissipated, and unstable).
6. Concluding Remarks Concerning the Criticism of Morality.
399.
These are the things I demand of you—however badly they may sound in your ears: that you subject moral valuations themselves to criticism. That you should put a stop to your instinctive moral impulse—which in this case demands submission and not criticism—with the question: "why precisely submission?" That this yearning for a "why?"—for a criticism of morality should not only be your present form of morality, but the sublimest of all moralities, and an honour to the age you live in. That your honesty, your will, may give an account of itself, and not deceive you: "why not?"—Before what tribunal?
400.
The three postulates:—
All that is ignoble is high (the protest of the "vulgar man").
All that is contrary to Nature is high (the protest of the physiologically botched).
All that is of average worth is high (the protest of the herd, of the "mediocre").