In this way, the whole perspective of the problems of morality is altered.
All the struggle of morals against vice, luxury, crime, and even against illness, seems a naïveté, a superfluous effort: there is no such thing as "improvement" (a word against repentance).
Decadence itself is not a thing that can be withstood: it is absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. That which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism.
Is that done? The very reverse is done. It is precisely on this account that one makes a stand on behalf of humanity.
How do the highest values created hitherto stand in relation to this fundamental question in biology? Philosophy, religion, morality, art, etc.
(The remedy: militarism, for instance, from Napoleon onwards, who regarded civilisation as his natural enemy.)
42.
All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the causes of degeneration, are really its effects.
But those things also which have been regarded as the remedies of degeneration are only palliatives of certain effects thereof: the "cured" are types of the degenerate.
The results of decadence: vice—viciousness; illness—sickliness; crime—criminality; celibacy—sterility; hysteria—the weakness of the will; alcoholism; pessimism, anarchy; debauchery (also of the spirit). The calumniators, underminers, sceptics, and destroyers.