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Why the Antagonistic Values always succumbed.
1. How was this actually possible! Question: why did life and physiological well-constitutedness succumb everywhere? Why was there no affirmative philosophy, no affirmative religion?
The historical signs of such movements: the pagan religion. Dionysos versus the Christ. The Renaissance. Art.
2. The strong and the weak: the healthy and the sick; the exception and the rule. There is no doubt as to who is the stronger....
General view of history; Is man an exception in the history of life on this account?—An objection to Darwinism. The means wherewith the weak succeed in ruling have become: instincts, "humanity," "institutions." ...
3. The proof of this rule on the part of the weak is to be found in our political instincts, in our social values, in our arts, and in our science.
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The instincts of decadence have become master of the instincts of ascending life.... The will to nonentity has prevailed over the will to life!
Is this true? is there not perhaps a stronger guarantee of life and of the species in this victory of the weak and the mediocre?—is it not perhaps only a means in the collective movement of life, a mere slackening of the pace, a protective measure against something even more dangerous?