Thus in the history of morality a will to power finds expression, by means of which, either the slaves, the oppressed, the bungled and the botched, those that suffer from themselves, or the mediocre, attempt to make those valuations prevail which favour their existence.
From a biological standpoint, therefore, the phenomenon Morality is of a highly suspicious nature. Up to the present, morality has developed at the cost of: the ruling classes and their specific instincts, the well-constituted and beautiful natures, the independent and privileged classes in all respects.
Morality, then, is a sort of counter-movement opposing Nature's endeavours to arrive at a higher type. Its effects are: mistrust of life in general (in so far as its tendencies are felt to be immoral), —hostility towards the senses (inasmuch as the highest values are felt to be opposed to the higher instincts),—Degeneration and self-destruction of "higher natures," because it is precisely in them that the conflict becomes conscious.
401.
Which values have been paramount hitherto?
Morality as the leading value in all phases of philosophy (even with the Sceptics). Result: this world is no good, a "true world" must exist somewhere.
What is it that here determines the highest value? What, in sooth, is morality? The instinct of decadence; it is the exhausted and the disinherited who take their revenge in this way and play the masters....
Historical proof: philosophers have always been decadents and always in the pay of Nihilistic religions.
The instinct of decadence appears as the will to power. The introduction of its system of means: its means are absolutely immoral.
General aspect: the values that have been highest hitherto have been a special instance of the will to power; morality itself is a particular instance of immorality.